--- title: "Sector uplift, the leap and journey of Chinese innovative drugs" type: "News" locale: "en" url: "https://longbridge.com/en/news/282801068.md" description: "On April 15th, China's innovative drug sector collectively rose, with companies like BrightGene experiencing significant growth. The State Council released new policies to optimize the pricing mechanism for innovative drugs, and it is expected that the Class C catalog for medical insurance will be published in 2025, marking the arrival of the incremental payment era for innovative drugs. Huafu Securities predicts that the total transaction volume for innovative drug BD will increase from USD 9.2 billion in 2020 to USD 52.3 billion in 2025, with overseas licensing transaction volume exceeding USD 130 billion by 2025. At the ASCO conference, the number of oral presentations from China reached a historic high, demonstrating the potential and attention surrounding the innovative drug market" datetime: "2026-04-15T07:25:30.000Z" locales: - [zh-CN](https://longbridge.com/zh-CN/news/282801068.md) - [en](https://longbridge.com/en/news/282801068.md) - [zh-HK](https://longbridge.com/zh-HK/news/282801068.md) --- # Sector uplift, the leap and journey of Chinese innovative drugs On April 15, the innovative drug sector collectively rose, with BrightGene, Peking University Pharmaceutical, Haizheng Pharmaceutical, Shuanglu Pharmaceutical, Guangsheng Tang, Shutai Shen, Buchang Pharmaceutical, and BeiGene all experiencing significant gains. On April 14, the General Office of the State Council issued "Several Opinions on Improving the Price Formation Mechanism of Pharmaceuticals," proposing 14 measures, including optimizing the initial pricing mechanism for innovative drugs and other newly listed drugs, leveraging the guiding role of medical insurance payment standards in drug price formation, guiding pharmacies to reasonably set retail prices for drugs, and strengthening the supply and price stability of shortage drugs. The tightening of policies was the core reason for the last round of major adjustments in the pharmaceutical sector, but now, the domestic policy environment for innovative drugs has clearly become more relaxed. In 2024, innovative drugs made their first appearance in the government work report. In 2025, the government work report further provided specific instructions and positioning from various dimensions such as industry, funding, and development direction. More critically, it proposed that a Class C medical insurance catalog would be released in 2025, indicating that the era of incremental payment for innovative drugs is imminent. Domestic policies have supported the lower limit of innovative drugs, while overseas business development (BD) has directly opened up the upper limit. Research reports from Huafu Securities show that from 2020 to 2025, the total transaction amount for innovative drug BD increased from $9.2 billion to $52.3 billion, with the upfront payment amount rising from $600 million to $4.1 billion. Entering 2025, innovative drug BD will be completely unleashed, with an increasing number and larger scale—3SBio secured a deal worth over $6 billion with Pfizer, Germany's BioNTech crazily resold $11.1 billion worth of Pumis BNT327, and three potential BD deals from CSPC Pharmaceutical with a total potential amount of $5 billion are about to land... In 2025, the total amount of overseas licensing transactions for innovative drugs in China will exceed $130 billion, setting a new historical high. The ASCO conference has always been regarded as the largest and highest academic level conference in the global oncology field. At the recently concluded 2025 ASCO conference, there were a total of 73 oral presentations from China, a historic high. When all negative factors have been fully priced in, any slight change can bring about significant elasticity, especially with such a notable marginal improvement, which is a fundamental underlying logic for the current revaluation of innovative drugs. However, if innovative drugs only outperform their past selves, they cannot have the current market influence and attention. From 2015 to 2024, China's pharmaceutical industry completed a historic leap from following to leading in just ten years. In the 184 ADC pipeline-related studies selected for the 2025 ASCO conference, 89 were from China, accounting for approximately 48.4% of the total; Chinese companies released about 34 bispecific antibody studies, accounting for about 49% of the overall bispecific antibody research, and global researchers published a total of 54 "Late Breaking Abstracts" (LBA), of which 11 LBAs were led by Chinese researchers Ten years ago, there was only one oral report from China at ASCO, and the highly anticipated LBA project had a count of zero. In 2015, there were only 124 research pipelines for original innovative drugs in China, but by 2024, this number has reached 704, ranking first in the world. In 2015, there were only 9 FIC innovative drugs developed by Chinese companies entering clinical trials, accounting for less than 10% globally; by 2024, this number has soared to 120, with a share exceeding 30%. Looking ahead, the great journey of Chinese innovative drugs has just begun. On one hand, local biotech companies have achieved a crushing advantage over their overseas counterparts with extremely low R&D costs (about 1/3 to 1/5 of those in the United States) and faster R&D speeds. As of now, Chinese companies lead the world in the number of research pipelines in fields such as cell therapy, ADC, and bispecific antibodies, maintaining the top position in 716 research tracks. On the other hand, multinational pharmaceutical companies are about to face a patent cliff. It is reported that by 2037, 27 blockbuster drugs with sales exceeding $4 billion in 2024 will face patent expiration in the global market. MNCs such as Merck, Novartis, AstraZeneca, Pfizer, Roche, and GSK urgently need to replenish their R&D pipelines to maintain market competitiveness. In 2024, the proportion of China's outbound licensing transaction value accounted for 30% of the global total, and by 2025, this proportion has risen to over 40%. By leveraging the License-out model to realize the globalization of technology value and fill the market gap after the MNC patent cliff, this is the vast ocean belonging to Chinese innovative pharmaceutical companies. According to Huafu Securities' estimates, the overall net profit from authorized projects in China from 2020 to 2025 is expected to be around $8.2 billion. As the saying goes, an era of shining stars has arrived; the pharmaceutical sector has been one of the worst-performing sectors in the capital market over the past five years, but it may also be one of the best-performing sectors in the next five years. This article involves content related to listed companies and represents the author's personal analysis and judgment based on information publicly disclosed by listed companies in accordance with their legal obligations (including but not limited to temporary announcements, periodic reports, and official interactive platforms); the information or opinions in this article do not constitute any investment or other business advice, and Market Value Observation assumes no responsibility for any actions taken based on this article. ——END—— ### Related Stocks - [688166.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/688166.CN.md) - [159837.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159837.CN.md) - [560600.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/560600.CN.md) - [510660.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/510660.CN.md) - [159316.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159316.CN.md) - [159297.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159297.CN.md) - [520880.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/520880.CN.md) - [512290.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/512290.CN.md) - [588250.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/588250.CN.md) - [520690.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/520690.CN.md) - [159506.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159506.CN.md) - [159858.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159858.CN.md) - [159859.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159859.CN.md) - [516500.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/516500.CN.md) - [588860.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/588860.CN.md) - [515120.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/515120.CN.md) - [512010.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/512010.CN.md) - [159849.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159849.CN.md) - [516930.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/516930.CN.md) - [159102.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159102.CN.md) - [159992.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/159992.CN.md) - [513700.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/513700.CN.md) - [516820.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/516820.CN.md) - [588130.CN](https://longbridge.com/en/quote/588130.CN.md) ## Related News & Research - [Analyst Reiterates Buy on Microbix, Citing Temporary China Slowdown and Growing Diversified Demand](https://longbridge.com/en/news/286665358.md) - [Shanghai Henlius says China regulator clears HLX48 Phase 1 trial IND for solid tumors](https://longbridge.com/en/news/287189347.md) - [Junshi Biosciences wins China approval for toripalimab combo in first-line urothelial cancer](https://longbridge.com/en/news/287200914.md) - [SSY Group wins China NMPA approval for emedastine difumarate eye drops 0.05%](https://longbridge.com/en/news/287187916.md) - [Shanghai Henlius wins Australia clearance to start Phase 1 HLX3902 cancer trial](https://longbridge.com/en/news/287190785.md)