A closer look at the numbers that paint China as accelerating towards global biopharma dominance and you will find indications that the region’s ascension is not as unassailable as many might think.
This was the message a panel of pharma representatives and analysts gave at the 2026 Nordic Life Science Days meeting in Stockholm, Sweden, 9 September. They note that while China has capitalised on its newfound innovation with more robust asset quality and intellectual property protection in recent years, there are reasons to believe the Asian giant’s course could be reaching a plateau.
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Daniel Chancellor, vice president of thought leadership at Norstella, cited figures to explain. Two thirds of biopharma deals so far this year have involved Chinese companies, he says following data from a June report made by Norstella subsidiary Evaluate. He estimates known active Chinese drug programmes number around 7,000, in line with a similar figure reported in a 2025 Citeline review, also a Norstella subsidiary.
However, Chancellor claims only around 3% of pipelines in the west represent Chinese-origin drugs. Further, he says China’s underlying innovative growth is beginning to slow. “We’re probably reaching an equilibrium,” he speculates, “the story of explosive growth probably is coming to a close.”
Panelists offered several explanations for this. Daniel Rankin, head of strategy and corporate development at SOBI, says there is now an oversupply of Chinese drugs. With swathes of China’s industry focused on rapidly improving on new drugs out of the US and Europe, he says there are now many mechanistically similar candidates that will struggle to find buyers overseas.
This view concurs with a sentiment voiced by experts who were interviewed by Pharmaceutical Technology at the end of 2025. They suggested that the pool of assets has been drained through high-deal turnover, which in turn would lead to a slowing in the future.
A slowdown in dealmaking may also be tied, counterintuitively, to higher quality Chinese candidates. According to Frances Stocks Allen, a partner at Cooley, “people aren’t really going to China for a bargain anymore. The Chinese prices have remarkable increased.” She adds, “demand clearly will slow down as it becomes apparent that there’s not going to be quite so many buyers at this higher price point.”
Other regions in Asia are now likely the next to see rapid expansion in the market, says Malin Jonsson Boezelman, senior director of business development at AstraZeneca. In particular, Rankin identifies India. She says that while India may not be able to match its neighbour’s speed and scale of innovation, the country has the “intellectual muscle” to fuel a future rise akin to China’s in the past.
