Chinese drugmakers are seeing a deeper and wider presence overseas, with homegrown innovative pharmaceuticals underpinned by a maturing innovation ecosystem and a favorable policy environment, industry executives and experts said.
The sector — which, alongside artificial intelligence and robotics, forms what some international observers are calling China's "next new three", a term referring to a new wave of Chinese growth industries emerging after the original "new three" (electric vehicles, batteries and solar products) — is shorthand for the nation's shift toward higher-value, tech-intensive manufacturing.
The innovative drug sector is emerging as a new driver of export growth, fueled largely by cross-border out-licensing, with the NewCo model and direct overseas commercialization also gaining traction, they added.
NewCo models involve hybrid structures in which a Chinese drugmaker spins off select clinical assets and then teams up with investors to refinance the nurturing of these assets through the creation of a new company in a jurisdiction overseas.
China's pharmaceutical sector momentum was reflected in the 81 out-licensing deals signed in the first half of this year, with a potential combined value of about $110 billion — a record for any six-month period and equivalent to roughly 80 percent of the full-year total for 2025, according to the National Medical Products Administration.
