In late May 2025, Pfizer agreed to pay US$1.25 billion upfront to 3SBio, a Shenyang-based biotech firm, for the rights to an anti-tumour drug. The deal could eventually be worth up to US$6.05 billion. Shares in 3SBio’s Shanghai-listed unit doubled in the week after the announcement.
Two weeks later, Germany’s BioNTech and its partner Bristol Myers Squibb unveiled an agreement worth US$1.5 billion upfront, with another US$2 billion guaranteed through 2028 and up to US$7.6 billion tied to development milestones. The therapy came from a drug BioNTech bought from the Chinese startup Biotheus in November 2024.
Caixin reported that Chinese biotech was having what industry insiders called a “DeepSeek moment.”
What buyers want
The deals centre on a new class of cancer drugs, PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibodies, which attack tumours by targeting immune checkpoints and tumour-linked blood vessels at once. Interest jumped in September after Akeso Biopharma presented trial results at the World Lung Cancer Conference. Its drug ivonescimab beat Merck’s Keytruda in head-to-head trials.
Pressure on the buyers helps explain the rush. Core patents on 69 blockbuster drugs are due to expire by 2030, according to Caixin, and big pharma needs new products. AstraZeneca, Merck and Pfizer are each acquiring Chinese assets. “If a multinational pharma company wants to buy a bispecific antibody or an ADC, it is now a given that they will have to see what’s available in China,” said Peng Wei, a partner at a life sciences incubator.
The numbers
In the first quarter of 2025, the value of Chinese pharma deals rose 222 percent from a year earlier, according to Pharmcube. China accounted for nearly half the world’s billion-dollar-plus pharma transactions, with local firms signing 11. Between 2020 and 2023, the value of China’s out-licensing deals grew at an average of more than 80 percent a year, against a global average of 10 percent, CEC Capital data show.
Oncology trials tell the same story. China accounts for 39 percent of the global total, up from 24 percent in 2019 and 2 percent in 2009, IQVIA says.
For many Chinese companies the deals are a lifeline. Market downturns between 2021 and 2024 erased more than half the industry’s value and froze IPOs. In 2024, upfront licensing payments of nearly US$4.1 billion passed equity fundraising for the first time. BeiGene posted its first annual adjusted operating profit in 2024. Innovent Biologics reported its first adjusted non-IFRS profit.
Not everyone wins
Liu Dan, managing partner at Pivotal bioVenture Partners, put the odds plainly. China has nearly ten thousand biopharmaceutical companies, and “those that can successfully close a deal are still in the minority,” he said. “An industry shakeout is bound to happen.”
Most buyers are still smaller overseas firms. Valuations are also low: Liu said most Chinese assets are priced at 30 to 50 percent of what comparable overseas companies used to command. And the main tracks are filling up. Nearly every active trial for PD-1/VEGF bispecifics now originates in China, and a similar race is under way in GLP-1 weight-loss drugs. “The competition is already intense,” said Li Sheng of Roland Berger.
