[By Guancha Observer Network, Shao Yun]

"The rise of China's biotechnology industry is making the U.S. scramble to catch up," reported Axios News Network on May 29th. Recent data shows that China has become a key force in global drug research and development. Not only does China register more annual clinical trials than the U.S., but it also leads significantly in the scale of its under-construction laboratories. This is attracting international pharmaceutical giants to invest more R&D funds into China, causing concern among U.S. politicians.

Axios reported that data shows that in 2024, the total number of clinical trials registered by China on the World Health Organization's International Clinical Trials Registry Platform (ICTRP) exceeded 7,100, while the U.S. was around 6,000. Data analytics and consulting firm GlobalData recently stated that its analysis found that the number of ongoing clinical trials in China has been increasing year by year over the past few years, now surpassing the U.S.

The report also cited a report released in April this year by U.S. commercial real estate services company CBRE, which pointed out that as of the end of 2024, the construction area of related laboratories and R&D centers in Beijing and Shanghai, China, was 7.4 million square feet (1 square foot is approximately equal to 0.0929 square meters) and 6.4 million square feet, respectively, exceeding other markets globally. Boston, USA, ranked third with an area of 3.9 million square feet, but the gap was significant.

Construction areas of life science laboratories/R&D centers ranked by city, CBRE

CBRE's report also found that although the U.S. still ranks first globally in terms of patent applications in the fields of biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and medical technology, China is catching up at a speed unmatched by any major country: since 2014, the number of patents in China's pharmaceutical and medical technology sectors has grown by 379%. By comparison, South Korea, which ranks second in terms of patent growth rate among major countries over the past 10 years, has seen a growth rate of 134%.

Number and growth rates of patents in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and medical technology sectors by country, CBRE

According to Axios' report, this indicates that Chinese biotech companies have transitioned from their early model of imitating U.S. technologies and manufacturing generic drugs to becoming developers of original new drugs, which hold potential dominance in areas such as cancer and autoimmune diseases.

The report points out that this transformation has attracted an increasing number of licensing agreements for experimental drugs from China and major investments from multinational pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Sanofi, and Novartis. Investment bank Stifel estimates that up to 37% of licensed drugs from large pharmaceutical companies this year will come from China. A few years ago, this proportion was only 12%, and around 30% in 2023 and 2024.

"Overall, they are becoming increasingly competitive," Juergen Eckhardt, Executive Vice President of Bayer Group and Head of "Bayer Leaps" (Leap by Bayer), and Head of Business Development and Licensing at Bayer Pharmaceuticals said. Last December, Bayer established "Shanghai Bayer co.lab" in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, to incubate local startups.

Dr. Simeon George, CEO of biotechnology venture capital firm SR One, which has offices in London and California, recalled to The Wall Street Journal that back in 2010, he had the opportunity to invest in a Chinese startup, BeiGene, but ultimately gave it up due to uncertain prospects. However, today, this company has transformed into a global company worth $30 billion.

George described it as his "biggest missed opportunity" in his career. However, now, SR One has developed a comprehensive China strategy. "What we need are deals that make sense on the value dimension, and China currently offers a very attractive value proposition," George said.

According to Axios, a typical example of China's biotech rise is last fall when U.S. biotech company Summit Therapeutics announced that a cancer immunotherapy drug imported from China Kangwei Bio had performed better than Merck's blockbuster drug Keytruda in late-stage lung cancer patients. The report even compared this breakthrough to China's AI startup DeepSeek's impact on Silicon Valley.

China's development in the biotech sector has also caught the attention of U.S. politicians. Last month, a report submitted to Congress by the "National Emerging Biotechnology Security Commission" of the U.S. Congress warned that China is surpassing the U.S. in advanced biotechnology, and Washington needs to invest substantial resources within the next five years to prevent this "power shift." The report渲染道: "There is still time to act, but there is no time to waste."

Scott Gottlieb, who served as FDA commissioner during Trump's first term, also wrote an article on American STAT News website earlier this month, urging the U.S. government to take measures to simplify FDA regulatory procedures to reduce drug R&D costs in the U.S. and "maintain" America's leadership position in global biomedicine.

"When U.S. pharmaceutical companies obtain drug licenses from China, it is essentially transferring funds that could otherwise be used to support local innovation hubs like Kendall Square in Boston and Research Triangle Park in North Carolina," Gottlieb wrote. "U.S. biotechnology once was the envy of the world, but if we are not careful, every medicine in the future may be made in China."

American analysts believe that breakthroughs like those achieved by Kangwei Bio are not "one-off" successes but are due to China's long-term national strategy in the field of biopharmaceuticals.

An article by the Washington-based think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in March stated that in recent years, Chinese government departments have completely reformed the regulatory ecosystem, strengthened the intellectual property framework, and provided huge support for basic and applied research, enabling China to make significant progress in biopharmaceutical innovation.

Therefore, many American experts worry that Trump's cuts to the budget of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and university biomedical research funding may further put the U.S. behind in drug R&D. Cyriac Roeding, an American entrepreneur who has been closely following China's biotech industry for the past 10 years, told Axios News Network, "China is not yet the superpower in biotechnology that has surpassed the U.S., but we must remain highly vigilant."

This article is an exclusive contribution by the Observer Network and cannot be reprinted without permission.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7510628022660301312/

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