US-China biotech summit builds bridges for innovative drug partnerships

International pharmaceutical leaders and investors gathered in San Francisco on Sunday to explore partnership opportunities with Chinese biotech companies, as the country's out-licensing deals exceeded $130 billion last year and its contribution to the global drug pipeline reached 30 percent.

Organized by the Zhongguancun FIC Innovative Drug Strategic Development Alliance, the 2026 China FIC Innovation and Collaboration Summit served as a global roadshow and launch platform for key Chinese innovative drug projects, facilitating connections between Chinese pharmaceutical companies and international industry leaders while promoting increased multinational investment in China's biotech sector.

"Our journey — from humble 'Me-Too' and 'Me-Better' to transformative 'First-in-Class' — tells a story not just of scientific progress, but of an entirely new ecosystem and a transformed model of global partnership," said the director-general of Beijing Investment Promotion Service Center during the summit.

She called the event a "vital two-way bridge" that showcases China's potential to the world while connecting global expertise with Chinese innovation, and said that China's pharmaceutical sector momentum rests on several fundamental pillars.

China's massive unified market, with over 1.4 billion people and healthcare coverage for 1.33 billion citizens, provides unparalleled scale for clinical development and commercialization of innovative medicines. The country's regulatory framework has evolved to operate in full compliance with International Council for Harmonisation guidelines, matching leading global standards while balancing innovation incentives with accessibility through volume-based procurement and national reimbursement negotiations, the director-general said.

The pace of regulatory approvals has accelerated dramatically, with Chinese authorities approving a record 76 innovative drugs in 2025 alone. These streamlined review timelines have created clearer pathways for synchronized global drug development and launches, she said.

China's emergence as a global research and development powerhouse is reflected in its out-licensing deals surpassing $130 billion last year, with approximately 30 percent of the worldwide innovative drug pipeline now being developed in China, according to the director.

Despite headwinds facing globalization and rising protectionism, Chinese Consul General in San Francisco Zhang Jianmin said that economic interdependence remains a global reality, with international collaboration essential for finding global solutions.

"The biopharmaceutical sector is a case in point, because this sector depends so much on global supply chains, cross-border clinical research, data sharing and the spirits of working together among scientists and innovators from around the world," Zhang said.

"Many of the tasks ahead of us are so complex that they are often beyond the capability of any individual country working alone. China and the United States are the two leading economies and the two leading innovators. If our two countries, our experts and scientists, our industries, are able to work together, it will immeasurably increase the chance of success in getting the most important job done," he said.

California State Treasurer Fiona Ma echoed this collaborative vision, highlighting the importance of leveraging technology to accelerate research and improve health outcomes. She said that California voters have consistently prioritized healthcare through statewide initiatives, approving bonds for stem cell research, children's hospitals and behavioral health services.

"So we have a lot of money now. We are investing in all of these areas. That's why we welcome the partnerships. We should not be doing research and development in our silos now. With the internet, with AI capabilities, we are better able to share our research," Ma said, "and that will expedite discoveries, increase people's health and longevity."

The summit highlighted China's decade-long transformation in pharmaceutical innovation. While the country's innovative drug pipeline has experienced explosive growth and become integral to the global pharmaceutical landscape, with 2025's cross-border licensing value doubling the previous year's scale, only a small percentage of China's new drug pipelines have been involved in transactions, indicating substantial untapped collaboration potential.

The ZFIC Alliance designed the summit to address this gap by creating an efficient communication platform connecting international pharmaceutical companies, investment institutions and Chinese biotech enterprises. Nine representative projects were selected from nearly 30 roadshow applications for in-person pitching sessions, spanning multiple cutting-edge technology areas and designed to enhance international visibility and collaboration potential.

Joseph Scheeren, a member of the French National Academy of Pharmacy with over three decades of pharmaceutical industry experience across the US, Europe and Asia, offered an optimistic assessment of China's trajectory.

"Chinese companies need to expand globally more aggressively. Beijing has certainly succeeded in doing that," Scheeren told China Daily. "Companies are moving in the right direction, particularly through global partnership deals that position them as worldwide development partners. However, this requires sufficient resources, which not all companies possess. I believe China has a bright future in pharmaceutical innovation if they're continuing on the route they are."