Chinese Biotechs Shed Fast-Follower Reputations as Innovation Surges in 2025

Chinese biotech companies are rapidly transitioning from being known primarily as 'fast followers'—focused on generic and copycat drugs—to global leaders in drug innovation, with the number of novel drugs entering development in China ballooning to over 1,250 in 2024, nearly catching up to the US and surpassing the EU2 7.

The surge is fueled by major state-backed investments, strategic national initiatives such as 'Made in China 2025' and 'Healthy China 2030,' and extensive regulatory reform that accelerated reviews, improved data quality, and fostered transparency1 2 3 5 9 11.

Chinese biotech firms are advancing large pipelines of innovative candidates, particularly in high-value areas such as oncology, immunology, diabetes, and obesity, and are increasingly licensing these novel compounds to multinational pharmaceutical companies2 5 11 13 14.

Chinese-origin drugs are increasingly winning recognition from stringent international regulators (such as the US FDA and EMA), with several drugs receiving special designations like priority review, breakthrough therapy, or fast track status2.

Key breakthroughs include Akeso's Ivonescimab, an immunotherapy that outperformed Merck’s Keytruda in a Phase III trial for lung cancer in 2024, and Legend Biotech's cell therapy, which has been co-developed and marketed globally with Johnson & Johnson2 3.

China’s vast patient pool and centralized hospital network allow for faster clinical trial recruitment, often completing enrollment in half the time required in the US for certain indications, thereby accelerating the drug development timeline2.

Despite impressive progress, risk-aversion remains:
Chinese companies still most commonly develop improved versions of existing therapies or use established modalities, rather than pioneering novel concepts—though the quality and global competitiveness of their innovation is steadily rising2 3.

Of the 50 global pharmaceutical companies generating the most innovative drug candidates between 2020 and 2024, 20 are Chinese—up from just 5 in the previous five-year period2.

Analysts project that molecules licensed out of China to large pharmas could reach 37% by 2025, as global investors and partners increasingly seek access to China’s rapidly growing R&D ecosystem1 13.