Sino US cross-border cooperation in biomedicine is at a delicate juncture.

On the one hand, there is a rising trading heat. In 2025, there will be 157 authorized transactions of Chinese innovative drugs, with a total amount of US $135.655 billion, accounting for nearly half of the total global transactions. China's innovative drugs have gradually moved from participants in the global industrial chain to the center of the trading table.
On the other hand, there is increasing geographical uncertainty. This means that in addition to technology, capital and commercial value, each cross-border transaction has another layer of variables.

How can a Chinese asset be truly understood by overseas buyers? How can the two sides reach a consensus across the differences in business culture, communication system and legal framework? This is becoming an increasingly important part of cross-border transactions.

At an industry conference in early 2026, Dr. Gao Zhenghong, the co-founder, chairman and CEO of uni pioneer, met Dr. chengzengjiang, the founder / Chairman of tongxieyi.

At that time, Cheng Zengjiang was preparing for the first major country Global Conference on new drugs (CPIC 2026). In the past, bosses and investors of Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises went overseas to attend industry conferences every year; However, China has nearly half of the world's innovative drug trading share, but it has always lacked a global platform that matches the size of the industry.

Cheng Zengjiang's idea is very clear: since people who make medicine all over the world fly to San Francisco every year to participate in JPM, why can't China have its own home of global innovative medicine? This idea soon gained Gao Zhenghong's approval.

"He said that he would hold a JPM conference in China. I was very excited and agreed with him. Without much thought, I agreed. ”

Thus, uni pioneer became the co sponsor of the Sino US cooperation special session of CPIC 2026.

In the afternoon of July 23, the CPIC 2026 Sino US cooperation special session "leveraging China's innovation to accelerate the process of global drug research and development" was held, and there was a full house.

After the meeting, Gao Zhenghong received an exclusive interview with tongfreehand brushwork. This dialogue is not just a meeting or a deal, but a bigger question: when China's innovative drugs have the ability to go global, who will truly connect China and the world?

Gao Zhenghong

co-founder and chairman of uni pioneer CEO

01. Instant cooperation

The cooperation between Gao Zhenghong and CPIC is not a whim. Over the past few years, he has been doing the same thing: finding the connection between Chinese innovation and the global market.

Gao Zhenghong has profound academic research background and drug research and development experience. In 2025, he participated in the founding of uni pioneer. Since then, he has turned his focus to strategic cooperation, cross-border venture capital, transaction matching and alliance construction, and built a bridge between the pharmaceutical industry, biotechnology, academia and investment institutions as "an industry builder and cross-border strategic expert transformed by scientific research".

As his identity changed, his perspective on the project also changed. "If we only do science, we may think after we go; but now we think before we do medicine."

Now when judging a project, he first looks at whether there is a real unmet clinical need, then looks at whether the asset has business logic and a reasonable exit method, and finally extrapolates what kind of molecules, teams and funds are needed. But the core of his judgment on the value of innovation has not changed: find truly valuable innovation and let it enter a larger global system.

Therefore, when Cheng Zengjiang proposed the idea of CPIC, Gao Zhenghong soon understood the industrial logic. China's innovative medicine is no longer a bystander in the global industrial chain, but at the same time, China has been lacking a truly global innovative medicine home, a platform that allows global capital, multinational pharmaceutical enterprises and China's innovative assets to truly exchange.

According to Gao Zhenghong, this connection is not simply to "sell Chinese assets".

The global innovative drug R & D system is changing, and one of the key changes is in the R & D structure of MNC. MNC R & D can be roughly divided into internal R & D and external innovation. External innovation accounts for nearly half of the total R & D. Among them, China has become an indispensable part of MNC's external innovation system.

This transformation is based on China's unique advantages. First, asset density and data quality: China has often explored different mechanisms and molecules on the same target. The second is the ability of engineering and industrialization. In the past, MNC paid attention to Chinese innovative drugs more because of the speed of clinical development; Nowadays, China has formed a relatively complete engineering and industrialization system, including a mature cdmo foundation.

"Not only the quality can be improved, the manufacturing problem can usually be solved well. When making drugs, especially when making many new molecules, if large-scale high-quality manufacturing cannot be carried out, it will be a serious limitation in the later clinical development and commercialization." gaozhenghong said.

In addition, MNC itself is facing increasingly urgent pressure from the patent cliff. The demand for external innovation is changing from "optional" to "required".

Gao Zhenghong pointed out: "if these MNCs do not go to China, where else can they go? Basically, except for China, it is difficult to find regions with the same allocation level as China. ”

This also means that the logic of Sino US innovative drug cooperation is changing.

In the past, it was more Chinese enterprises looking for overseas markets; Today, more and more overseas pharmaceutical companies are also looking for Chinese assets in turn. The problem is no longer whether China should participate in global R & D, but that global R & D is increasingly inseparable from China.

02. Hidden costs of cross-border transactions

The guest lineup of CPIC 2026 China US cooperation special session covers MNC, innovative drug companies VC、 Incubation Platform and other different roles. According to Gao Zhenghong, this is not simply to invite different people together, but to plan along the complete chain of innovative drug development and cross-border cooperation.

The whole design starts from the demand side, that is, what assets MNC wants to find and what direction it will focus on in the next three to five years. To this end, gaozhenghong invited harm Jan borgeld, head of Roche's Asian cooperation, to provide judgment from the perspective of the demand side. At the same time, investors from China, the United States and Japan discussed how to help Chinese innovative drugs integrate into the global R & D system from the perspective of different capital markets; Early incubators and service providers focused on how an innovative project moved from laboratory to real industrialization.

"We hope to put different roles together and see what experience can be learned and amplified." Gao Zhenghong said.
In the invitation list, there is also a special guest Carsten Brunn, chairman, President and CEO of Cartesian therapeutics. He was invited to attend the special session and explore the application of mRNA cell therapy in the field of autoimmunity.

In June this year, uni pioneer facilitated a representative cross-border cooperation between Cartesian and westgene biopharma. The two sides reached a strategic license agreement to jointly develop in vivo car-t and T cell adaptor therapies based on mRNA and targeted lipid nanoparticles (tlnp) technology for the treatment of autoimmune diseases.

According to the agreement, Cartesian has obtained the right to use the westgene tlnp platform, is responsible for the global clinical development and commercialization, and bears the R & D expenses; Westgene is responsible for early research and development, and obtains the down payment, milestone payment, sublicense revenue and sales commission. According to Gao Zhenghong, this is the first case that a Chinese company authorizes an American company to use an in vivo car-t delivery technology platform.

The significance of this transaction is not just "selling a Chinese platform to an American company", but a typical ability splicing. American companies have clinical development experience, while Chinese companies provide key technologies such as targeted delivery. Both sides add their respective advantages to accelerate a new technological direction.

But the real difficulty is not the technology itself.

Cartesian hopes to find in vivo car-t strategic cooperation opportunities in China, focusing on China's clinical development speed, platform advantages and rich cooperation options. The uni pioneer team has seen many Chinese companies before and after. The clinical data of many companies are actually comparable. One of the factors that ultimately affect the decision of cooperation is the quality of communication between the two sides.

Gao Zhenghong found that there were differences in expression, negotiation habits and even logical structure between Chinese and American teams. The American team tends to express directly, while the Chinese team is sometimes more implicit. In a word, it may correspond to completely different judgments in different cultural environments. This information gap can easily become a hidden cost in cross-border transactions.

It is also here that uni pioneer plays not only the role of "intermediary", but also a translator and coordinator: helping both parties accurately understand each other's intentions, and at the same time deeply participate in the transaction structure, terms and details, as well as lawyers' communication.

In terms of specific transaction execution, gaozhenghong has also gradually formed a set of methods: point-to-point communication, one single point corresponds to another, ensuring information alignment; From top to bottom, directly communicate with CEOs of both sides to speed up decision-making; Through interviews with Chinese IIT teams and hospitals, first-hand information was obtained to establish the trust of overseas teams in asset quality.

But in his view, all methods can not be separated from one thing in the end - sincerity. "Communicating directly with each other will also save a lot of trouble."

To some extent, this also explains the value of CPIC's China US cooperation session: put the needs hidden behind the transaction on the same table, so that Chinese assets and global buyers can not only "meet", but really start to understand each other.

03. Where is the next value window?

If the change in transaction structure reflects the capital attitude, what assets overseas buyers are looking for reflects what changes are taking place in China's innovative drugs.

Gao Zhenghong clearly feels that the expectations of overseas markets for Chinese assets are changing. In the past, Chinese innovative drugs were more simply classified as me too; But in the past two years, more and more American investors and MNC began to look for first in class in China.

Behind this is MNC's repricing of China's innovation capability.

According to Gao Zhenghong, China already has the foundation for source innovation. Universities and research institutes can provide original IP, professional investors and institutions can help complete technology transformation and corporatization, and the mature cdmo system further provides engineering and industrialization capabilities.
On the basis of these, which technology directions deserve the most attention?

Gao Zhenghong was first optimistic about CGT, especially car-t in vivo. "It provides many advantages in vivo, compared with in vitro, including CMC, as well as some advantages in toxicity and safety. ”

The capital market is also giving a response. In the past year, Lilly BMS、 Gilead and other multinational pharmaceutical companies have successively bet on in vivo cell therapy through acquisition or cooperation, and the heat of the track has rapidly warmed up. Chinese enterprises are also entering this track. Sys6055 of Shijiazhuang Pharmaceutical Group has become the first in vivo car-t project approved for clinical use in China, and many projects in China have entered the clinical development stage.

Another direction he is optimistic about is polypeptides, especially cyclic peptides. "Cyclic peptides provide an alternative between small molecules and antibodies. They can be used not only for treatment, but also for diagnosis. Moreover, they are chemically scalable."

From CGT to cyclic peptides, from first in class to cross-border authorization, they seem to be different topics, but they actually point to the same change: China's innovative drugs are moving from "providing assets" to "providing innovation".

Gao Zhenghong's attitude towards the uncertainty brought about by geopolitics is still clear: "medicine is used to benefit all mankind. Health is a global concept, and innovative medicine is a global business. Geopolitics is sometimes tight and sometimes loose, but this is a relatively short process. Innovative medicine is a long-term demand, and we should do it for a long time. ”

He believes that the timing is right for CPIC to start at such a time point.

"We benchmarked JPM. After all, JPM has a history of many years, and we need more accumulation. But in terms of the overall environment, we have such conditions. ”

After the meeting, gaozhenghong also received positive feedback from a number of guests who believed that the communication at the meeting was thorough and effective. More importantly, this value is bidirectional: MNC and investors can focus more on the quality of Chinese assets and the speed of Chinese R & D and industrialization; Chinese innovative drug developers also have the opportunity to more directly understand how MNC and VC evaluate their assets.

Gao Zhenghong said that the first session was just the beginning, and he still had more expectations for CPIC. "We need more MNCs and more VCs to participate from abroad. At the same time, I hope to see more Chinese drug developers show their pipelines and innovations at the meeting. ”

From the landing of a transaction, to the design of a forum, to the ambition of a platform, this path has been answering the same question: how can China's innovative drugs release greater value and occupy a more important strategic position in the international industrial chain?

Today, China does not lack assets that go global, nor does it lack buyers who are willing to pay a premium for them. What is really scarce is the ability for both sides to truly sit at the same table across technology, capital, culture and institutional differences.

This may be the problem that CPIC really wants to solve.