ver the past 16 months, Chinese-domiciled biotechs have featured in roughly 6 of every 26 major pharma licensing and acquisition deals, accounting for nearly one-third of total headline value. Roughly half of those deals involve firms of U.S. origin, mostly involving M&A. Just under 30% involves licensing deals with Chinese-headquartered firms while the remainder involves mixed deals involving European firms.
In December 2024, Merck licensed Jiangsu Province, China–headquartered Hansoh Pharma’s oral obesity candidate HS-10535 in a deal worth up to $2 billion. Then in March 2025, Merck went back to China for another major asset, licensing Hengrui’s heart drug HRS-5346 in a separate deal worth up to $2 billion.
The pattern extended in 2025 to present. Last July, Pfizer licensed 3SBio’s cancer candidate SSGJ-707 for $1.25 billion upfront and up to $4.8 billion in milestone payments, with a planned $100 million equity investment on top of that. In June, AstraZeneca signed an AI-led chronic-disease research pact with Hebei Province, China–based CSPC worth up to $5.3 billion.
And now in 2026, AbbVie announced a licensing agreement for RemeGen’s RC148 for advanced solid tumors in a deal worth up to $5.6 billion. Weeks later, AstraZeneca returned to CSPC, this time for obesity and weight-related drug candidates in a deal worth up to $18.5 billion, including $1.2 billion upfront. In early March, Sanofi licensed rovadicitinib from Sino Biopharm’s Chia Tai Tianqing unit for up to $1.53 billion. By late March, Lilly had expanded its work with Hong Kong-listed yet Cambridge, Mass.–headquartered Insilico Medicine into a licensing and research pact worth up to $2.75 billion.
According to Citeline’s Pharmaprojects database, more drugs made their market debut in China than anywhere else in 2025 (page 84), the first time any country has overtaken the U.S. on that metric. Fangning Zhang, a partner at McKinsey, told Citeline sister publication Scrip that China now “combines next-generation modality leadership and R&D velocity that runs faster and at lower cost than industry norms,” calling Asia “biopharma’s emerging epicenter.” The momentum could extend into the coming months. Tom Barsha, head of Asia Pacific M&A at BofA Securities, predicts the total value of China licensing-out deals will double again over the next 18 to 24 months.
