What Does the Rise of Chinese Biotech Really Mean for the U.S.? Where Is the China-U.S. Biotech Industry Headed? And How Are Big Pharma Companies Viewing China?

These questions are no longer distant industry议题 in 2026 — they are urgent propositions being constantly discussed, scrutinized, and redefined from every angle.

Over the past few years, China's biotech sector has evolved rapidly, delivering a large volume of R&D assets to the global innovative drug market at lower cost and higher efficiency. This has not only provided abundant "source water" for the global innovative drug market, but is also exerting real pressure on the U.S.-led biotech innovation ecosystem.

Around these opening questions, Endpoints News recently organized an in-depth debate. Three groups of panelists from vastly different backgrounds — top investors, biotech founders, and big pharma strategy executives — offered diverse perspectives, yet all pointed to the same core question: In the face of biotech innovation from China, should the U.S. embrace, contain, or precisely control it?

This was no industry talkfest. At a time when the Biosecure Act remains unresolved and U.S.-China tech decoupling is accelerating, examining Chinese innovation from the perspective of industry stakeholders — and rationally assessing both the challenges and opportunities it presents — is more important than ever.

Chapter 1: Cooperation or Decoupling?

Should investors embrace China's rapidly growing biotech industry, or should they erect barriers to protect and sustain an industry that the U.S. has dominated for decades? The opening question of the debate was weighty enough.

Peter Kolchinsky, Founding Partner of RA Capital, was the most staunch representative of the "open" camp. His opening statement was striking: "We have a common enemy — disease. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the Soviet Union collaborated to eradicate smallpox. Today, faced with cancer and Alzheimer's, we need the same kind of collaboration with China."

More importantly, Kolchinsky argued that protectionism is doomed to fail. Even if the U.S. restricts imports, Chinese drugs will still enter the U.S. market through "Euro-washing" — European companies can freely license Chinese molecules, conduct pivotal clinical trials outside the U.S., and then submit them to the FDA for approval.

In other words, the price of protectionism is not "America wins" — it's "America gets bypassed."

He also did the math based on RA Capital's portfolio companies. Among RA Capital's 200 portfolio companies, 12 rely on early-stage assets licensed from China, collectively employing approximately 300 U.S. workers.

He said that if Congress passes restrictive legislation, "these companies would not exist. We would not go fund 'alternative' versions in the U.S. — because that Chinese project was simply the best investment opportunity."

In his view, "when a drug that could cure cancer is placed in front of U.S. patients, no policy can stop their demand. Patients are the most powerful lobbying force."

Jason Kelly, CEO of Ginkgo Bioworks and former Chairman of the U.S. National Security Commission on Emerging Biotechnology, clearly positioned himself as a "China hawk."

He presented a sharp set of arguments backed by data: "Seventy percent of global pharmaceutical sales come from the U.S., and 79% of innovative molecules since 2020 originated in the U.S. Pharma is essentially a domestic U.S. industry — don't tell me we can't control our own market."

He argued that every Chinese startup's business plan is to sell drugs to the U.S., and the claim that "we can't control the market" is entirely false. With the right policies, the U.S. is fully capable of keeping Chinese drugs out.

MIT professor Fiona Murray attempted to find a middle ground between the two extremes, advocating for "tiered controls": limited restrictions on truly cutting-edge areas (such as AI-driven life sciences and gene-editing technologies), while maintaining cooperation in areas like ordinary antibody development and clinical trials.

"Reverse investment rules are blunt instruments. What we really need is to make the U.S. the place where the world's most cutting-edge discoveries happen." To that end, she called for establishing a transaction reporting system requiring disclosure of the origin of all molecules entering the FDA. "We need to know where the money is going and where the molecules are coming from — only then can we talk about controls."

She concluded: "Political decisions are not made once and for all; they are ongoing negotiations that require clear counterfactuals. Both sides' counterfactuals have holes. To keep the U.S. ahead across the entire chain from discovery to manufacturing, we must coordinate all tools — promote investment, identify transactions, track molecular sources, and start controls from the narrowest cutting edge."

Chapter 2: The Efficiency Debate — What Has China Leveraged?

The second debate featured two biotech founders, focusing on a more fundamental question: In a world where promising drugs are rapidly imitated, improved, and accelerated into clinical trials, is science still the core competitive advantage? Does the location of innovation affect how the industry brings projects to patients?

Jake Becraft, CEO of Strand Therapeutics, pointed out that parts of the drug discovery value chain — such as antibody discovery and small-molecule synthesis — have become "commoditized." "In the past, there was an eight-year lead time for antibodies against new targets; now it may only be two years. The industry has to change." He believes U.S. AI companies can also do these things; China is just one participant.

More importantly, he argued that America's biggest moat is its payment system: "Any drug invented anywhere in the world wants to do U.S. clinical trials and sell to U.S. patients, because that's where the money is. So drugs will always come to the U.S., unless policies change."

He even used a sharp analogy: "If it were hamburgers, we'd be happy that China sells them cheaper. Why panic when it comes to drugs?"

Matt Gline, CEO of Roivant Sciences, offered an even sharper critique: "Over the past 15 years, the biopharma industry has been 'sick' — spending more money to develop fewer innovative drugs, with exploding clinical trial costs and timelines, leading everyone to cluster around de-risked targets."

In his view, if this continues, China will discover, develop, and commercialize drugs, while the U.S. will lose capital and discovery organizations: "During the next pandemic, we'll have to wait for Chinese companies to make vaccines and line up behind them."

The two clashed fiercely on whether "drugs are equivalent to ordinary commodities" — Matt argued that data is data, and China's efficiency should be celebrated; Jake countered that drugs are not hamburgers — they are about supply chain security and industrial autonomy.

Despite their differences on specific strategies, the two reached consensus on one point: regardless of external competition, the U.S. biopharma industry must first solve its own structural problems. Areas for acceleration include: reforming FDA approval processes, expanding community hospital participation in clinical trials, streamlining surrogate endpoint approvals, and attracting global top talent.

Jake noted, "Australia has only one-tenth of our population but four times the number of first-in-human trials — we are fully capable of doing better."

Chapter 3: Big Pharma's Pragmatic Choice

The third debate shifted to the perspective of large pharmaceutical companies. As big pharma increasingly turns to China to fill its R&D pipelines, what will be the long-term impact on their strategies and operations? Andrew Baum, Senior Strategic Advisor to Pfizer's CEO, shared the company's views on M&A, R&D, and how the industry might evolve in the coming years.

Andrew acknowledged that China's advantage lies in "signal discovery" — rapidly obtaining proof-of-concept data through investigator-initiated trials (IITs) without submitting an IND. "If we wanted to do a Phase III trial comparing a trispecific antibody against a monoclonal antibody in the West, purchasing the comparator drug is expensive and enrollment is slow; whereas in China, for common diseases like asthma, it can be completed quickly."

On the protectionism debate, Andrew sided with the "open" camp represented by RA Capital's founder. He argued that the declining returns in the U.S. biopharma industry are primarily due to domestic policies (IRA and MFN), not competition from China — making China a "scapegoat" misses the point.

He pointed to Europe as a cautionary tale, warning that Europe's decline over the past 20 years due to reduced investment offers a lesson worth heeding. "China's academic institutions are improving year by year in translational clinical medicine. We must invest, but we don't need protectionism."

On the question of "when China will produce a top-20 global pharma company," Baum's estimate was 10 years. He believes that advancing a drug from discovery to global commercialization involves complex steps — regulatory, pricing, market access — and these capabilities cannot be rushed through industrial policy. "The core value of pharmaceutical companies lies downstream (similar to movie distribution and merchandise). Chinese companies will find it difficult to accelerate this catch-up."

As for whether "multi-asset deals are paving the way for Chinese companies," Baum appeared unconcerned: "I'm not worried. Even without us, they would still progress."

Behind this statement lies his judgment on the internal momentum of Chinese biotech — China's rise is systemic, not "fed" by the West.

— Closing Thoughts —

Looking across the entire debate, the panelists were in strong agreement on one point: everyone acknowledged that China has become a force that cannot be ignored in the global biotech landscape.

But on specific response strategies, the three camps represent three entirely different underlying logics:

The protectionist logic is control. If you control market access, you control the industry's destiny. But the question is: in a globalized R&D network, will attempting to切断 knowledge flow through administrative orders instead isolate oneself from the innovation frontier?

The open camp's logic is confidence. As long as the U.S. maintains its purchasing power, research excellence, and talent appeal, it need not fear any external competition. But the question remains: if the efficiency gap continues to widen, could this "confidence" become mere self-consolation?

The centrist logic is precision. It sounds the most reasonable, yet may be the hardest to execute. How do you define the "narrow" scope? Who can guarantee that today's "narrow" won't become tomorrow's "wide"? Political inertia often proves more powerful than rational boundaries.

The value of this debate may not lie in providing a standard answer — because complex issues involving national security, industrial interests, and patient rights have no simple solutions.

Its value lies in giving us a direct window into the divisions. Through this debate, we glimpse the most真实 disagreements and anxieties across U.S. industry sectors — they are not monolithic, and the internal debates are far more complex and profound than the simple question of "should we contain China or not?"

This reminds us: the course of China's innovation should not be set by others' anxieties — it should be anchored in its own rhythm.

References:

• Endpoints News "Post-Hoc Live" three-debate videos

• Endpoints News, Live from Boston: Investor math versus industrial priority? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW070WS7beY

• Endpoints News, Live from Boston: Has China changed how we build companies? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXph7rims0U

• Endpoints News, Live from Boston: How pharma thinks about China https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrlvN30ygFo