Pfizer is the latest multinational pharmaceutical firm to turn to China for help discovering new medicines, striking late Thursday an expansive alliance with Innovent Biologics potentially worth more than $10 billion.
The deal involves up to 12 cancer drugs, eight of which are early-stage prospects from Innovent, while the remaining four are “Pfizer-proposed” discovery programs. All are newer types of “antibody-drug conjugates” or “multispecific” antibodies — technologies that are becoming more popular in treating cancer.
Innovent will handle discovery work and early research, with Pfizer taking over global development after Phase 1 testing. Pfizer will get worldwide rights, and cover all the costs for four programs. It’ll gain ownership outside of greater China to another four of those drugs, and then will equally split rights and development costs with Innovent on the other four prospects in the deal.
All told, Innovent is receiving $650 million up front and is eligible for another $9.85 billion in downstream payouts should a variety of milestones be met. The Suzhou, China-based company would get royalties on the sales of any approved medicines emerging from the deal, too.
The alliance is the latest example of the growing relationship between U.S. and European drugmakers and their China-based counterparts. Over the last few years, an explosion of dealmaking has occurred as the fast rise of China’s biotechnology sector has yielded a wealth of drug prospects that can be quickly readied for human testing. BioPharma Dive data show that more than 60 licensing deals were struck last year, and more than two dozen have followed in 2026.
