China’s biotechs are faster and have lower costs, and its drug research threatens to soon overtake the West’s

Finding innovative ways to treat cancer is Pfizer’s biggest priority so to boost cutting-edge technologies, Pfizer executives went to Shenyang, China. There, last summer, Pfizer paid $1.25 billion to China’s 3SBio for rights to a cancer drug candidate.

Not long ago, China was a backwater for drug research. Its companies made pharmaceutical ingredients or lower-cost generic drugs. Its patients offered an opportunity for big drugmakers to sell medicines developed in the West. 

Now it’s a major player in biotechnology. Researchers and startups in China are racing to develop hot new medicines for cancer, weight-loss and other diseases. Many are on the cutting edge of molecular biology.

“China is rallying their innovation to degrees that we haven’t seen before,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla said. 

Looking to tap in to the innovation, big drugmakers and investors are spending billions to lock up rights to promising Chinese-originated drug candidates like 3SBio’s.

All told, Western and Japanese drugmakers did 70 transactions with Chinese biotechs last year, paying nearly $5.6 billion upfront to get rights to promising molecules, according to pharmaceutical commercial intelligence firm Evaluate.

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