Chinese analysts say the country is anticipating the emergence – within the next decade – of a home-grown pharmaceutical giant capable of competing with global players in a decade, reports the South China Morning Post.
“For the past three decades, there was only one global research and development ecosystem, which was the United States,” said Fu Wei, founder and CEO of CBC Group, a healthcare-dedicated asset management firm founded in Shanghai and now based in Singapore.
“Over the past decade, a parallel ecosystem – China – has emerged. We are not only more cost-efficient, but also faster in drug innovation, and its edge is irreversible,” he said during a panel discussion at the recent Global Health Summit in Hong Kong.
“Ten years from now, we will definitely see a Chinese Big Pharma emerging in its home market.”
However, Fu said that building a globally competitive pharmaceutical powerhouse with Chinese roots would be a long-term process, that the biopharma industry, unlike others, required years of regulatory approvals, deep product pipelines with hundreds of new drugs, and next-generation technologies before companies could achieve a meaningful market impact.
Once this vision materialised, it would mark a significant change from the current landscape, where China’s innovative drug market remains dominated by foreign multinationals, Fu said, citing AstraZeneca as an example.
He added that the Swedish-British company’s innovative drug sales in China surpassed those of local leader Hengrui Pharma.
Once known primarily for low-margin generic manufacturing, China’s pharmaceutical sector has undergone a wave of innovation: currently, it accounts for roughly 30% of the world’s novel drugs under development, ranking second globally.
Iris Wang, founding partner and chief investment officer at Hong Kong-based TruMed Investment, noted that China’s biotech sector is expanding at a pace that has caught the market off guard.
She said the biotech boom is rooted in systemic efficiency, built on infrastructure, policy support, and a deep talent pool, making it difficult to replicate elsewhere in the near term.
Beijing has pledged to deepen its support for the sector. In a blueprint for China’s healthcare development over the next five years released by the State Council in July, authorities committed to providing full-chain support for drug innovation, while pledging faster regulatory approvals for critical therapies and improved clinical evaluation frameworks to boost hospital adoption.
Wang said she anticipated sustained momentum for Chinese drug innovators, adding that China’s systemic efficiency was well positioned to drive breakthroughs in frontier domains like AI-driven drug development.
“Some mistakenly assume that because the US leads in AI, it will naturally dominate biotech in the future,” she said. “But in drug discovery, AI models alone are not enough. What truly matters is whether that computational power can be converted into data validated in the lab, and ultimately, validated in clinical trials.
“Pioneering in AI drug discovery right now requires systemic leadership across AI, biology, and lab operations. China is building a whole new paradigm here, giving the country advantages to take the lead in the next phase of drug innovation.”
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