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Author: Jeff Southwood

What?if you could find rich portfolios of advanced therapeutics for treating cancer, autoimmune disorders, metabolic disorders, and?more,?that?had already proven efficacy and safety in advanced clinical trials. But?also,?that?the companies developing them, while biological powerhouses, lack?the global marketing footprint to bring them to the wider world.?That’s?the situation today with?10?of China’s most advanced biotech and pharmaceutical companies. To look at this closely,?AdisInsight?recently published?a?report,?,?which?explores?this?in detail.

Driven in part by the regulatory reforms China made in 2015 and 2020, as well as investments in basic and advanced biomedical research, these China-based companies (including names like Innovent Biologics, Akeso, Sinopharm, Insilico Medicine, and others) have deep portfolios of therapeutics that are either already approved in China, or in late-stage clinical trials that have already demonstrated their efficacy, ready for global partnerships. You will find a wealth of detail about these 10 companies in Strategic Pharma Insights: Asia Focus Part I: China’s Movers & Shakers; but I wanted to pick out a few highlights, including some examples of existing, highly successful China-global partnerships.

China’s therapeutic and innovative strengths

Common threads connecting these 10 companies include focusing on both life-threatening and chronic disease states like cancer and autoimmune disorders, and also an emphasis on biologics, including monoclonal and bispecific antibodies, chimeric antigen T-cell (CAR-T) technology, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), vaccines, immunotherapy, and other advanced and biologic modalities.

For example, Legend Biotech’s CAR-T cell therapy, which is an advanced immunotherapy approach that involves genetically reprogramming the patient’s own T-cells so that they’re able to identify and destroy cancer cells. These T-cells are laboratory-modified to express chimeric antigen receptors (CARs), specialised proteins that can identify cancer-specific markers, and then re-transfused into the patient’s cancerous tissue. Indicated mainly for blood cancers like specific types of leukaemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma, this CAR-T treatment’s revenue is forecast to reach $47.28 billion by 2030.

3SBIo’s deal with Pfizer for its SSGJ-707 is another example. This is a bispecific antibody that works on programmed cell death-1 ligand-1 inhibitors, indicated for non-small cell cancer and other solid tumours. Based on its strong Phase II objective response rates (72-100% among patients completing at least two treatment evaluations), 3SBio was able to make a global licensing deal with Pfizer, and Pfizer is advancing this treatment to global Phase III trials for non-small cell lung cancer and other solid tumours.

Akeso, Inc. has a monoclonal antibody for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) that, in clinical trials, outperformed Merck’s Keytruda (the market leader). This monoclonal antibody, called Ivonescimab, gave patients progression-free survival of more than 11 months before tumours began growing again, which is almost double Keytruda’s 5.8 months. But despite this superiour clinical performance, Ivonescimab’s market share lags Keytruda, because while Akeso has the stronger therapeutic, Merck has the stronger global footprint (in addition Keytruda’s first-mover advantage).

Innovent Biologics has monoclonal antibody candidates IB 3009 and IBI 343, the latter of which is fast-tracked for treating advanced pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC). It’s also in Phase II trials for gastric cancer and completed Phase I/II for pancreatic cancer. Based on this potential, Takeda has agreed to fully develop and commercialise IBI 343 outside of Greater China. IBI 3009 is a monoclonal antibody indicated for neuroendocrine carcinoma and small cell lung cancer. It is a cutting-edge approach in anticancer therapy combining the specificity of antibody-directed conjugation with the potent inhibitory effects on a critical enzyme involved in DNA replication and tumour progression.

Strengthening international biopharma alliances

A quick summary of some of the other active partnerships already concluded or in process include: 

• Innovent Biologics has expanded globally through strategic alliances:?  
  • Partnered with Roche to launch the ADC candidate IBI3009 internationally.?  
  • Collaborates with Mankind Pharma to bring its PD-1 inhibitor,?sintilimab, to the Indian market.?  
  • Entered a $1.2?billion deal with Takeda, granting global rights to late-stage assets IBI363 and IBI343, plus an option on a bispecific ADC, signaling major East–West co-development momentum.?  
• Sciwind Biosciences signed a $70?million upfront licensing deal with Verdiva Bio (exChina & Korea) for its metabolic-disease candidate ecnoglutide, with up to $2.4?billion in milestones, marking a major move into global markets.?
• Duality Biologics secured global licensing of DB1418 from Avenzo Therapeutics following its Phase III success of BNT323, demonstrating healthy cross-border biotech licensing activity.?
• WuXi Biologics has advanced its Global Dual Sourcing Strategy, delivering on its global CDMO model—including EMA approval of its Dundalk site and further expansion in Europe and Singapore, enhancing its positioning as a global-scale biologics manufacturing partner.

Companies such as Innovent, Sciwind, and Duality illustrate China’s growing capacity in complex biologics and AI-driven platforms, bringing the right people together with novel technology to develop powerful new therapeutics.

Growing opportunities for China-global partnerships

China’s regulatory reforms has streamlined the approval process, especially for breakthrough technologies and for critical diseases. This has both attracted local and global investment, and spurred innovation. As a consequence, China’s pharmaceutical companies have been able to develop these therapeutics and quickly shepherd them through trials, despite these companies often lack global infrastructures or marketing footprints.

So, for global pharmaceutical companies that do have that global infrastructure and the ability to globalise new therapies, but whose pipelines might be moving more slowly, partnering with Chinese firms is an obvious choice. Global firms get access to strong candidates that are either already locally licensed, or in successful late-stage trials (which reduces risk), and the Chinese firms get access to the global market. And patients get access to new, life-saving medicine. It’s a win-win-win scenario.

Find out more: You’ll find a wealth of detailed insights in AdisInsight’s report, Strategic Pharma Insights: , that will help global R&D managers identify partners and evaluate their real potential.   

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