SHANGHAI, Sept. 11 (Xinhua Silk Road) -- As Chinese listed pharmaceutical companies release their first-half results for 2026, a series of eye-catching business development deals has drawn renewed market attention. The total value of overseas licensing deals involving Chinese innovative drugs reached a record high in the first half of the year, with Chinese companies involved in eight of the world's 10 largest innovative-drug licensing deals during the period, according to industry data.
Innovative drugs, alongside emerging fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics, are gaining recognition in overseas markets on the back of China's expanding technological capabilities, becoming new showcases for the country's innovation and manufacturing strengths.
The latest wave of deals also points to a broader shift: Chinese biopharmaceutical companies are moving beyond exporting individual drug products and increasingly contributing research, development and commercialization capabilities to the global pharmaceutical ecosystem.
-- Overseas deals surge as mega-deals emerge
In January, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group reached an agreement with AstraZeneca worth up to 18.5 billion U.S. dollars, setting a record for a single innovative drug deal involving a Chinese company. In May, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals struck a global strategic partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb worth up to 15.2 billion U.S. dollars. In the same month, Innovent Biologics signed an agreement with Pfizer with a potential value of up to 10.5 billion U.S. dollars.
Data from China's National Medical Products Administration showed that Chinese companies completed 81 overseas licensing deals for innovative drugs in the first half of the year, with a combined value of about 110 billion U.S. dollars. That was roughly 80 percent of the total value recorded for all of 2025 and marked a new high.
The surge is being driven by both supply and demand. For multinational drugmakers, the approaching patent expiry of many blockbuster medicines is increasing the pressure to replenish pipelines with new products that can help offset potential revenue losses.
At the same time, China's drug research and development capabilities have improved rapidly, giving global pharmaceutical companies access to a growing pool of potentially high-quality assets. Drug candidates under development in China now account for about 30 percent of the global total. Chinese companies are also generating original results in areas such as precision cancer treatment, with several homegrown drug candidates ranking among the global leaders in their respective categories.
At the 2026 annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 94 studies led by Chinese innovative drug companies were selected for oral presentation, while 12 were included in the meeting's late-breaking abstracts, which highlight some of the most closely watched advances in oncology.
Behind the surge in dealmaking is a broader change in how Chinese innovative drugs are entering global markets. Multinational drugmakers are no longer looking solely to acquire the rights to a single promising drug candidate. Their partnerships with Chinese companies are increasingly expanding to cover multiple candidates and broader research platforms.
Chinese companies, meanwhile, are moving beyond licensing regional rights to individual products. Through joint development and commercialization, they are becoming more deeply involved in global research and market operations.
-- Co-development opens new room for cooperation
More significant than the increase in deal value is the evolution of deal structures. In the early stages of their overseas expansion, Chinese drugmakers largely relied on licensing individual products. A multinational pharmaceutical company would evaluate a drug candidate and acquire the rights to develop and commercialize it in selected overseas markets.
That model is now giving way to broader portfolio-based cooperation. Hengrui's partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb covers 13 early-stage innovative programs, while Innovent's agreement with Pfizer includes 12 early-stage cancer drug programs.
This shift reflects years of investment by Chinese companies in research and development. In fast-growing areas including next-generation cancer therapies, immunotherapy and treatments for metabolic diseases, some Chinese drugmakers have built increasingly broad product portfolios and technology platforms.
For multinational pharmaceutical companies, acquiring or partnering on a portfolio of projects can help diversify the risks associated with the failure of any single drug candidate.
For Chinese companies, multi-program partnerships suggest that global drugmakers are recognizing not only the value of individual products, but also the research capabilities, technology platforms and development systems behind them.
Another emerging trend is the rise of co-development and co-commercialization. Under a traditional licensing agreement, a Chinese company transfers the rights to develop and commercialize a product in a particular region in exchange for an upfront payment, milestone payments and a share of future sales. While the model gives the product access to the overseas partner's global network, the Chinese company often has limited involvement in subsequent development and commercialization decisions.
Under the new model, the two sides jointly commit resources, share risks and divide future returns under agreed terms.
Hengrui's partnership with Bristol Myers Squibb, for example, includes joint discovery, development and commercialization. According to Hengrui, such full-chain cooperation allows a Chinese company to participate more directly in global research, development and commercial operations, rather than simply transferring an asset and waiting for milestone or royalty payments.
-- From using global networks to building global capabilities
If the first stage of Chinese drugmakers' overseas expansion was primarily about bringing domestically developed products to international markets, the latest phase is increasingly about changing the role Chinese companies play in the global innovation chain.
An increasing number of overseas licensing deals are evolving into long-term strategic partnerships in which both sides commit resources, share risks and divide returns. Such arrangements give Chinese companies a greater role in clinical development and commercialization decisions.
Jin Chunlin, director of the Shanghai Health Development Research Center, said the shift reflects not only innovation in deal structures, but also improvements in the quality of Chinese drug assets and the country's overall R&D capabilities. As Chinese companies narrow the gap with global peers — and in some fields move to the forefront — they are no longer merely supplying products to international markets, but increasingly participating in global value creation on a more equal footing.
The deeper significance of the trend lies in the accumulation of capabilities. In the past, overseas licensing by Chinese innovative-drug companies was sometimes described as "using another company's ship to go global," with domestic developers relying heavily on the clinical development, regulatory and commercial networks of multinational partners to bring their products to international markets.
Today, each partnership also serves as a form of practical training. By participating in global development and commercialization, Chinese companies can gain a deeper understanding of international rules and different markets, accumulate operational experience and ultimately develop global capabilities of their own.
Faster overseas expansion and deeper international cooperation are also bringing new challenges. Regulatory requirements in overseas markets are becoming more demanding, while scrutiny of cross-border technology cooperation and clinical-data compliance is intensifying. Such changes can make international projects more complex and costly to execute.
Cooperation involving multiple products and the entire development chain also places greater demands on intellectual property protection, cross-border risk management and business negotiations. A shortage of professionals with international experience, gaps in basic research and differences between some domestic development practices and international standards remain areas that need to be addressed.
To meet these challenges, Chinese companies need to adopt a global approach from the earliest stages of R&D, align development plans with international standards, negotiate agreements carefully and retain appropriate control over core research and operations, industry analysts said.
The string of multi-billion-U.S. dollar partnerships and the continued growth in overseas deal values point to a fundamental transformation in China's biopharmaceutical industry. The sector is moving from licensing individual products to exporting broader portfolios, technology platforms and full-chain capabilities, marking a shift from isolated breakthroughs toward a more mature and globally integrated innovation system. (Contributed by Ge Jiamin and Du Kang)
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