Reference News, July 3 report: According to the website of the U.S. "Wall Street Journal," on July 2, Pfizer announced that it would pay a $1.25 billion upfront payment to China's Sanpower Biotech to acquire the rights to an experimental anticancer drug, and could potentially add billions more later. Pfizer called this deal "very good."
The drug of Sanpower Biotech is still in clinical trials. If it indeed helps cancer patients live longer, this would be a big positive for the United States—whether for American patients or for shareholders of New York-based Pfizer.
The report states that, at this time, the rise of China's biotechnology industry has caused concerns among some people in the U.S. policy circle. One issue is why U.S. companies have not invented more such drugs? What if, one day, most breakthrough treatments come from China, and the U.S. has to request import licenses from China?
In fact, Western pharmaceutical executives and policymakers have only recently begun to feel the pressure of the strong rise of China's drug R&D industry.
"Ten years ago, China produced more generic drugs. But now the situation is completely different. China produces 'first-in-class' and 'best-in-class' drugs," said Andrew Dickinson, CFO of Gilead Sciences in the U.S., in January.
According to the latest data from DealForma Biopharma, a U.S. company, Chinese biotechnology companies accounted for as much as 38% of transactions with upfront payments of $50 million or more since 2025. By comparison, this proportion was 27% in 2024 and 19% in 2023.
The report says that Beijing has long regarded the biotechnology industry as a priority area and considers it essential for achieving strategic autonomy. Chinese regulatory authorities have improved drug approval times, aligning China's clinical trials with international standards, and supporting a batch of pharmaceutical companies that have moved from "imitation" to "innovation." These efforts are now beginning to show results.
Xia Yu, CEO and co-founder of China's康方生物 (Kangfang Biopharma), said that the pharmaceutical industry has always been a global industry. Xia emphasized particularly that a good medicine benefits both the Chinese and American people equally.
Researchers at the Harvard Kennedy School recently concluded in a study that China is most likely to surpass the U.S. first in the field of biotechnology among five key technology areas, followed by artificial intelligence, semiconductors, aerospace, and quantum technologies.
The report questioned whether U.S. legislators really want to slow down China's cancer research progress and make global patients wait longer. That sounds strange.
AstraZeneca's Qingdao inhalation aerosol production and supply base. This production and supply base has undergone two rounds of capital increases, with a total investment of $750 million, making it the first transnational pharmaceutical manufacturing project in Shandong Province (photo taken on June 17, 2025, drone photo) (Xinhua News Agency).
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