A new five-year biotech plan has been released by the Chinese government, revealing ambitious goals such as achieving five blockbuster medicines on the global markets in that time.
By 2030, China wants at least 25% of first-in-class drugs on the global market to have originated in the country and to grow the biotech industry by 20% annually, according to the Chinese government’s latest five-year plan to achieve biotechnology dominance.
The ambitious—but unsurprising—goal for the years 2026 through 2030 was revealed by China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) on Friday. The country has rolled out multiple five-year plans since 2007 focused on the biotech industry, which has driven the region’s rise as a key source of innovation in recent years.
The Chinese government would like the local biotech industry to grow from about 20 million yuan ($2.98 million) to 3.5 trillion yuan ($521.8 billion) in the next five years.
At the end of the term, 50 individual companies should be making revenue of 10 billion yuan ($1.5 billion) and at least five Chinese-developed drugs should reach—and exceed—blockbuster status with $1 billion in sales.
“The plan arrives at a pivotal moment as China’s pharmaceutical industry shifts rapidly from its traditional identity as a supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients and a large consumption market toward a new phase defined by the export of innovative drugs,” an English translation of the plan stated.
A few years ago, China became the go-to destination for innovative drugs. Big Pharmas flocked to the region as the companies there began pumping out more than just me-too copycats. Obesity, immunology and cancer have emerged as major targets, but the region is offering nearly any innovative medicine a pharma could want.
The plan highlights that licensing deals for China-developed drugs have grown 36% year-on-year, with the total value surpassing $120 billion.
At the same time, biotech leaders in the U.S. have been sounding the alarm that American lawmakers must match China’s national strategy.
“China’s approach has been to steal, scale and strangle American competitors in this space,” Caitlin Frazer, executive director of the National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology (NSCEB), recently told BioSpace. “We have to start thinking about what it means if we so erode our innovation base here in the U.S. that we are dependent on a potential adversary for life-sustaining medications.”
Experts agree that there is plenty of innovation to be found in China and good science should be accessible to American patients regardless of borders, but say guardrails should be put in place to ensure “inescapable dependencies” are not created, in the words of BIO CEO John Crowley.
While dozens of U.S. and European companies have companies have signed deals with Chinese biotechs, perhaps the most prominent drug in the pipeline is Summit Therapeutics and Akeso’s PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody ivonescimab, which is awaiting FDA approval in a type of non-small cell lung cancer.
Correction (Sept. 18): This story has been updated from its original version to clarify that China is seeking to have 25% of first-in-class drugs on the global market to have originated in the country. BioSpace regrets the error.
