To outside observers, the rise of China as an innovation powerhouse almost happened overnight. Having earned a reputation for mass manufacturing generic drugs and active pharmaceutical ingredients, China has become the second most popular location for clinical trials after the U.S., as well as the largest single source of biotech licensing-out deals anywhere in the world.
But these companies have bigger ambitions than simply cutting deals with the likes of Pfizer or AstraZeneca. For executives at many of the Chinese drug developers who spoke to Fierce, the real prize is a seat at the Big Pharma table. In recent years, this objective has moved from a vague aspiration to a concrete goal.
Of course, breaking into this exclusive club isn’t going to be easy. Each Chinese company appears to have their own plan based on their individual programs, cash flow, R&D strategy, and—most importantly—risk appetite.
“I believe China could produce five to 10 global Big Pharmas in the next five to 10 years,” John Zhu, Ph.D., CEO of DualityBio, told Fierce in an interview.
Shanghai-headquartered DualityBio makes no secret of its own ambitions—the company’s website states that its goal is to become a “global ADC powerhouse.” So far, that has included a $1 billion biobucks antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) pact with Roche’s Genentech in August and a $243 million Hong Kong IPO last year that was backed by another partner, Germany’s BioNTech.
By Zhu’s definition, a company needs a market cap of $50 billion and a meaningful global commercial presence to earn the right to call itself a “global Big Pharma.” No publicly-listed Chinese drug developer has reached this benchmark yet.
BeOne Medicines—formerly known as BeiGene—comes closest with a market cap of over $40 billion. But despite tracing its origins back to Beijing, the company has always straddled East and West, having been founded by American entrepreneur John Oyler and Chinese-American biochemist Xiaodong Wang, Ph.D. More recently, the company has quietly distanced itself from its Chinese origins while geopolitical tensions rise between the U.S. and China.
When it comes to truly home-grown success stories, Hengrui Pharmaceuticals is a strong contender. As well as a market cap heading toward the coveted $50 billion mark, the company has signed some of the biggest licensing deals of recent years, and is nurturing a pipeline of more than 100 new molecule entities across its four main therapeutic areas: oncology; metabolic and cardiovascular diseases; immunological and respiratory diseases; and neuroscience.
Other Chinese companies that have burst onto the international scene courtesy of high-profile collaborations with Western pharmas include Hansoh Pharmaceutical, Innovent Biologics, Kelun-Biotech, CSPC Pharmaceutical, Akeso and Fosun Pharma.
In a DualityBio town hall held the day before he spoke to Fierce, Zhu said that China’s biopharmas are at the crux of their “Cambrian period”—a reference to a geological era hundreds of millions of years ago when the Earth saw an explosion of new species appearing in a short space of time.
The biopharma equivalent of that in China is new modalities emerging in every pathway, he explained to Fierce, with many of them capable of being combined through engineering to create further therapeutic possibilities.
“You can only imagine more will come,” the CEO added.
John Gong, Ph.D., CEO of 3D Medicines, a Shanghai-based biotech working on radiopharmaceutical drug conjugate as well as mRNA and LNP delivery platforms, expressed a similar sentiment to Fierce.
“With so many different modalities in China proceeding at the same time, it’s totally plausible that some will achieve global success,” he said, name-checking BeOne and Akeso as obvious contenders.
“It only needs one blockbuster drug for a Chinese biotech to become global,” said Gong, who alluded to BeOne’s blockbuster BTK inhibitor Brukinsa.
Some companies have turned their global ambitions into a fully-fledged corporate strategy. In early 2026, Henlius Biotech, Fosun Pharma’s majority-owned subsidiary, debuted its “C-MNC” plan to become a China-headquartered multinational biopharma.
Henlius made its name with biosimilars, including of Roche's oncology blockbuster Rituxan, which was the first biosimilar approved in China and the first China-made biosimilar approved in Europe. But the company has increasingly been moving toward becoming a global biopharma in its own right, including picking up the regional rights to HanchorBio’s phase 2-stage CD47 blocker last year, as well as an anti-IL-1RAP monoclonal antibody from U-mab Biopharma earlier this year.
“Our resources are concentrated in China, but the objective is to sell our products to the world, earning the market share they deserve,” Henlius CEO Jason Zhu, M.D., Ph.D., told Fierce. “In the next five years, still relying on the China market as our primary revenue source is not our goal.”
‘We need to be patient’
Based on conversations with Fierce, it appears that many established Chinese biopharmas are taking a more cautious approach to their dreams of going global.
“For an established pharma with growing sales and profits like us, no sudden moves—evolving step by step—is the most crucial,” said Eric Tse, CEO of SBP Group, the new name for Sino Pharmaceutical. That rebrand came in August, when the company hailed 2026 as the first year of its globalization strategy.
“It’s a long-term strategy to move forward to become a top 10 global pharma,” Tse explained. “I’m confident that we can probably make it in the next 10 years.”
It was a similar mentality at Hengrui Pharma, which has become one of the most in-demand sources of Chinese biopharma innovation over the past couple of years.
“We’re working towards it,” Lianshan Zhang, Ph.D., EVP responsible for Hengrui’s innovation ecosystem, told Fierce. “But we need to be patient.”
So what does it take to become a Big Pharma? Fangning Zhang, a Shanghai-based partner at McKinsey & Co who advises biopharma leaders, splits the process into three stages.
First, a company needs to create an innovation engine with a stable output of new drugs that are globally recognized. Next, they must successfully push one product through the full cycle from late-stage development to regulatory registration, manufacturing and commercialization to a global market. Finally, the company needs to establish a portfolio of products across different therapeutic areas and regions.
“I don't think it's going to be a linear process, especially for Chinese companies,” Zhang told Fierce. However, when it comes to attaining global Big Pharma status, “all roads lead to Rome,” she said.
Many Chinese companies have already aced the first stage of Zhang’s roadmap. In the first six months of 2026, out-licensing deals from China reached a record high—81 deals with a total value of $110 billion, accounting for 80% of 2025’s full-year total, according to figures from China’s top drug regulator cited by state media.
“The best way to take our products global for now is to license out and find international partners,” SBP’s Tse said.
The company reported revenue of 19.44 billion yuan ($2.85 billion) for the first half of 2026. As one of the top established biopharmas in China, SBP has 20 new drugs approved in the country across its core disease areas: oncology; hepatology and cardiometabolic diseases; respiratory and autoimmune diseases; and surgery and analgesia.
But to support the over 100 candidates in its pipeline, SBP Group knows it needs even deeper pockets. “To develop them in-house will affect the profits and the company both too much,” Tse said, pointing out that costs will ramp up when the candidates reach late-stage global trials.
So far this year, SBP has signed landmark deals with both Sanofi and AstraZeneca worth up to a combined total of $3.6 billion in biobucks. When SBP picks an international partner, the company is looking for someone who will be compatible with the relevant therapy area, Tse said. This means they will be more likely to stay the course and develop the drugs through to approval.
“To get approval and sales is what is most important for our choice,” Tse explained.
At the same time, SBP was the first to include acquisitions into its globalization plan. In 2025, the company purchased Shanghai-based biotech LaNova at a valuation of $1 billion for its antibody discovery and ADC platforms. Earlier this year, SBP bought Hangzhou-based Hygieia Pharmaceuticals for 1.2 billion yuan (about $176 million) to get hold of its siRNA delivery tech.
Other established biopharmas like Hengrui and Innovent Biologics have begun to re-imagine what licensing out can do for their globalization strategy. To this end, they have pioneered the NewCo model, which involves co-developing and even co-commercializing drugs with international partners.
While the majority of clinical trials run by Chinese companies are conducted on their home turf, established players like Hengrui and DualityBio have also begun launching their late-stage studies overseas for their key assets.
By June, nearly half of the over 3,500 patients enrolled in trials of DualityBio medicines were based outside of China and participating in global trials in regions like the U.S. and Europe.
DualityBio retained the right for the U.S. market to exercise co-development and co-promotion options for one of the three ADCs it licensed to BioNTech in 2023, namely the B7-H3-targeting elfe-D. Now the two parties have launched elfe-D’s first global phase 3 trial in prostate cancer in the U.S., China, the U.K.z and Australia.
“We fought for those options and got them in the deal with BioNTech because of [elfe-D’s] ‘pipeline-in-a-product’ potential,” Zhu told Fierce. “Looking back, that has turned out to be an important strategic decision for us. In the U.S., this product has blockbuster sales potential and we own half of the rights.”
By August, the company had locked seven global licensing deals worth up to $7 billion in total value. DualityBio now has over 10 ADC pipelines and 10 candidates in clinical phases in China and abroad.
Some companies are moving even faster. Henlius is pushing forward around five global phase 3 trials on its own. One of the late-stage studies pits HLX22, its anti-HER2 monoclonal antibody head-to-head against the current first-line standard of care in HER2-positive gastric cancer, trastuzumab and chemotherapy, with or without Merck & Co.’s Keytruda.
Henlius started building its late-stage clinical development capacity in the U.S. three years ago, CEO Zhu said, a strength that many of its Chinese peers still don’t have. The company has also begun to set up a commercial team in the U.S. as the drugmaker continues to roll out its biosimilars, such as its take on Roche's blockbuster breast cancer drug Perjeta.
“Our core capacities built from biosimilars can benefit innovative drugs, too,” Zhu explained.
Henlius’ ambitious goal of a 100% increase in overseas revenue every year for its biosimilars for the next five years, if achieved, will support its growing pipeline of new drug candidates. The company said on its website that it now has over 50 early-stage candidates in its pipeline, 70% of which are potentially “best-in-class” and 15% are hoped to be “first-in-class.”
While China’s biotech innovation up to this point has mostly relied on following existing targets or pathways, CEOs acknowledged to Fierce that true Big Pharma status will come from addressing differentiated clinical needs that are yet to be met.
“We must be better than what’s currently the best in the world,” 3D Medicines’ Gong said. “This is how the differentiation shows.”
“It all comes down to the data to prove it—nothing else matters,” added Gong, whose lifelong goal is to develop a blockbuster drug that sells multi-billion dollars globally.
These companies are not only relying on a cutting-edge pipeline to make it to the front of the global pack, they’re also counting on the world-famous Chinese work ethic.
Since the founding of DualityBio in 2020, CEO Zhu told Fierce that he works every day from 7am until late at night. Due to the time difference, he uses the evening to communicate with his team in the U.S. When he finally goes to bed around midnight, his team in America has usually worked four hours already.
“Sometimes it feels like Duality never sleeps,” he said, half-jokingly. “With teams working across China and the U.S., progress doesn’t stop when one office signs off for the day. Work naturally continues across time zones.”
Zhu, a seasoned investor for over 20 years who helped incubate multiple star biotechs, explained that this is a combination of entrepreneurship and passion. This mentality is not uncommon among the Chinese biopharmas.
But even with a dedicated work ethic and a pipeline of drugs with real potential, we’re unlikely to see a Chinese company ascend to global Big Pharma status very soon, suggested McKinsey’s Zhang. The giants of the industry took decades to become truly global players and the same will likely be true for their Chinese peers, she pointed out.
“I think it's great that they do have the aspiration to eventually build a global presence and global capabilities,” she said. But it remains a long journey, and these companies need to have patience and a bit of luck, she added.
Still, it’s not only Chinese companies who believe the days of global Chinese Big Pharmas are approaching.
“I actually hear many global pharma executives express that view either with anticipation or as speculation,” Zhang said. “Some, to some extent, are even worried about it.”
The growing role of China as a source of biopharma innovation is one of the hot topics being discussed at Fierce Biotech's high-impact event in London this month. Find out more information and register by clicking on the banner below:
