Can AI collaborations power China’s next wave of blockbuster drug deals?
I'm LongbridgeAI, I can summarize articles.China's innovative drug sector is pivoting to AI collaborations following a record US$110 billion in cross-border deals in H1 2026. CSPC Pharmaceutical Group partnered with AstraZeneca using AI for nucleic acid drugs, while Hanx Biopharmaceuticals engaged TwinEdge Bioscience to apply AI in simulating patient responses for its blood cancer therapy. These moves highlight China's rising innovation efficiency and the growing role of AI in driving future pharmaceutical transactions.
After China’s cross-border deals for innovative drugs hit a record US$110 billion in the first half of 2026, the sector is now pivoting towards artificial intelligence-powered candidates to drive the next wave of transactions. China accounted for about 30 per cent of all new drugs currently under development worldwide, ranking second globally, according to Lan Gongtao, deputy director general of the Department of Drug Registration at the National Medical Products Administration. China’s pharmaceutical industry had risen to the top tier globally in innovation efficiency, Lan said at a forum over the weekend. In the first six months, the 81 deals sealed by June 30 had already equalled about 80 per cent of last year’s full total, according to Chinese state media reports on Monday. The deals covered 10 therapeutic areas, including oncology, metabolic diseases, immunology and neurology, the reports said. Buyers came from 20 countries and regions, mainly the US, the UK, France and Italy. Momentum has carried into July. CSPC Pharmaceutical Group signed a new collaboration with AstraZeneca on July 2, leveraging CSPC’s proprietary AI molecular design platform to jointly discover and develop small nucleic acid drug candidates for two targets. CSPC is expected to receive an upfront payment of US$30 million and could earn up to US$540 million tied to development milestones, another US$1.2 billion in potential sales milestones, plus potential single-digit royalties. Also on July 2, Wuhan-based Hanx Biopharmaceuticals initiated research with Swiss computational biology firm TwinEdge Bioscience. The project will apply AI to the development of HX009, its experimental antibody therapy treating blood cancer. “Traditional preclinical testing results may limit in-depth investigation of early drug efficacy and individual differences of subjects,” said Hanx Biopharmaceuticals chairman Zhang Faming in a statement. The AI-driven collaboration built virtual replicas of patients, simulating how each might react to treatment, to help the company decide whether and how to advance HX009 into large clinical trials, according to Zhang.