The 2026 JPM Healthcare Conference felt much like the ones before: the crowds were back, and hotel prices in downtown San Francisco's Union Square were still 7–10 times higher than usual.
Whether biopharma is in a boom or a downturn, the air here is always thick with anxiety, hope, short-term goals, and long-term visions.
About 80% of attendees, as long as they're still in the industry, come almost every year-only their roles and objectives change.
The true magic of JPM is that the participants themselves are constantly being scrutinized and "priced" on this very stage.
One American biotech founder, who sold his company to a multinational corporation (MNC) for over a billion dollars last year, recalled his journey. In the early days, he came to pitch to investors. When there was progress, he returned to meet with MNCs for business development (BD) opportunities. Those were days of pure anxiety: "To get a meeting with an MNC a month in advance, you had to go through layers of connections." Having sold his company, he returned this year without urgent business, free to simply take the pulse of the industry. Now, having started another company, he remains busy, but his past "track record" has become a professional endorsement that MNC executives are eager to leverage.
Chinese biotech companies, like their founders, change roles every year. A guest from a top U.S. venture capital firm attended a China-hosted pre-JPM meeting in 2025, expecting to see a room full of "typical Asian faces." Instead, "most weren't," and at that moment, he said, "I knew what was coming next."
What followed, in his words, was the first year in which all the major pharmaceutical and biotech companies comprehensively expanded their China operations. If you asked any MNC's BD team, "Are you hiring?" the answer was invariably, "We're only hiring in China."
This year, at this grand gathering, Chinese biotech has entered yet another new phase.
From being an unfamiliar entity under scrutiny a few years ago, to being "bought to try out" by MNCs, to becoming a hot discussion topic last year, Chinese biotech is once again at the center of the conversation in 2026-but the buzzwords have shifted to "innovation," "first-in-class," and "multi-layered, in-depth collaboration."
At several pre-JPM events hosted by BayHelix and BIOSeedin, BD heads from various MNCs were unanimous: in the global BD market, China's share has steadily climbed from about one-fifth to nearly one-third. In 2025, the scale of Chinese innovative drug out-licensing deals exceeded $100 billion, accounting for roughly 30% of global R&D projects. Notably, in the top 20 major out-licensing deals, upfront payments have generally reached the billion-dollar level.
Behind these numerous short-term deals lies a deeper judgment from MNC buyers and partners. After initial collaborations, most have opted for longer-term, more diverse, and even deeper co-creation partnerships.
01 When Chinese Data Gains Clinical Trust
The core competitiveness of Chinese innovative drug assets has always revolved around "speed" and "cost"-clinical trial execution is significantly faster than in Europe and the U.S., while costs are only half, or even lower.
However, a persistent question for MNCs evaluating Chinese assets has been: does the cost advantage come at the expense of data quality?
An American MNC BD executive who purchased several projects from China last year recalled a 2023 negotiation. His team bluntly asked, "Can we trust these clinical data from China?"
At the time, data due diligence remained a critical step. A defining feature of China's clinical landscape is its rapid patient enrollment, generating vast amounts of data quickly. But for international buyers, interpreting this data requires careful consideration of cross-regional translatability, including patient backgrounds, medical practices, and trial design. Sometimes, even the comparability of animal models across regions must be assessed.
In the past two years, as MNCs conducted more in-depth verification of Chinese clinical data, this trust deficit has gradually diminished.
The aforementioned executive stated, "We reviewed the raw data from about 70% of Phase 1 patients and confirmed its reliability. Since 2024–2025, I've never heard my team ask, 'Is the data trustworthy?' again."
This shift is corroborated by multiple sources. In March 2024, the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences published an article in Cancer Communicationsbased on FDA Bioresearch Monitoring (BIMO) inspection results. It found that since China's 2015 regulatory reforms, the proportion of "no action indicated" findings in inspections across China, the U.S., EU, and Japan has become comparable.
"But we still face a problem: sometimes it's very difficult to obtain this data," said a BD head from a Japanese MNC. He recounted a project that had not yet been made public, where they explicitly requested patient-level raw data. While the Chinese company provided imaging data and patient narratives, from the MNC's perspective, this was insufficient. "We need to re-process the information and re-run the SAS tables to verify that the conclusions, results, and endpoints match. Sometimes we get the data; sometimes we don't. Once, we even lost the entire project to a competitor because we couldn't access this critical data."
The root of this issue is structural. In China, while contracts often state that "data belongs to the sponsor," in practice, the raw data is typically controlled by investigators, hospitals, or the executing teams. Companies cannot always access, integrate, or control this data when needed.
Once a project enters the cross-border collaboration stage, this gap between "nominal ownership" and "practical limitation" can quickly become a decisive factor in deal timing, valuation, and even the project's fate.
The executive urged Chinese companies, "This problem needs to be addressed early. When developing a molecule, you should simultaneously think about your future partners' strategic needs and plan three to four years ahead."
02 China's Innovation Becomes the New Expectation
At a pre-JPM event, a partner from Bain Capital, with over $180 billion in assets under management, shared that the firm decided in 2018 to systematically build its presence in Asia, with China as its first stop. Nearly seven years later, Bain has completed six China-related investments in the past five years. He views the Asia-Pacific region as one of the firm's most important growth areas, driven by two core beliefs: first, that innovation will emerge in Asia and potentially grow faster than in the U.S. (though over 80% of Bain's investments are still in the U.S.); and second, excitement about innovations in China's therapeutic areas (e.g., acute myeloid leukemia) and technology platforms (e.g., C-linker, mRNA).
This is backed by facts. BeiGene's BTK inhibitor zanubrutinib and Legend Biotech's CAR-T therapy Carvykti have already proven that Chinese innovators can develop "best-in-class" drugs with global competitiveness. Numerous successful out-licensing deals for clinical-stage assets have further demonstrated China's ability to compete head-to-head in global markets.
This capability continues to draw global capital. Another top U.S. biopharma investment firm noted, "We're usually low-key and rarely disclose specific deals, but the one we made public last year was a collaboration with a Chinese company. We valued this deal because it represented true best-in-class innovation."
A major U.S. pharmaceutical company also expressed high expectations for Chinese assets, predicting the next two years will be "extremely exciting." Their investment focus is clear: TCE platforms for solid tumors that can overcome toxicity, novel ADC payloads, and emerging therapeutic modalities. They observed that Chinese companies often have a unique advantage in technology paths requiring extensive fine-tuning and optimization.
A key manifestation of this advantage is their agile iteration speed. From generating antibodies to testing them on TCE or ADC platforms, and then rapidly adjusting strategies based on data, many international peers have remarked, "The speed of iteration is shocking."
Building on best-in-class potential, the conversation at this year's JPM has quietly shifted.
At the same event last year, the question of "Can China produce first-in-class drugs?" was met with a forecast of "three to five years." This year, a panel moderator sought to reframe the narrative: "Looking at the actual deal flow, there are always Chinese first-in-class projects underway. The question is no longer 'if,' but rather that the market's attention hasn't been fully focused on this in the past two years."
03 Diversified Collaboration
When assessing therapeutic areas, MNCs typically focus on the maturity of clinical data and commercial potential.
If in previous years their collaboration with Chinese biotech was mainly "one-off" asset purchases, this year offers more possibilities. The reason is simple: they now recognize the innovative capabilities of Chinese companies.
At various pre-JPM events, executives from MNCs and investors emphasized a unique Chinese strength: the speed of strategic pivoting. They can rapidly generate molecules, test them on platforms like TCE and ADC, and quickly adjust and restructure strategies based on data. This engineering efficiency is "20%–40% faster" than their foreign counterparts.
Moving beyond the old stereotype of Chinese companies only producing "fast-follow, me-too" drugs, they now feel that "China's real advantage is the speed of scientific innovation," particularly in immuno-oncology, cell therapy, and aging-related technologies.
As a result, portfolio strategies are becoming the new core. Looking ahead to 2026, many attendees hope Chinese molecules will "truly shock the world," especially with breakthroughs in TCE and central nervous system diseases like Parkinson's.
In this context, MNCs are accelerating their shift to open innovation. Collaboration models and deal structures are evolving, and partnerships with venture capital firms are being redefined, creating new opportunities.
A partner from a top Boston-based biopharma VC was candid: the largest commercial market for innovative drugs is still the U.S. He stated, "Some Chinese companies have very strong R&D capabilities and early clinical data. We will help them build commercial infrastructure in the U.S. and Western Europe, creating a complete system of R&D, clinical, and commercial capabilities to ultimately take the company public or be acquired by a global pharmaceutical company."
Beyond capital and biotech collaboration, one MNC announced a joint venture with a Chinese fund, using the MNC's pipeline strategy to select products for investment.
04 The Invisible "Geopolitics"
In 2025, the debate and legislative process surrounding the U.S. Biosafety Act was a significant backdrop influencing the global biopharma collaboration environment. However, unlike the heated discussions outside the 2026 JPM venue, the term "geopolitics" was almost absent from the core conversations on-site. Panels and discussions focused on assets, data, platforms, deal structures, and timelines. One MNC executive noted, "China's innovation capability itself is changing the way we deal with uncertainty."
Over the past year, some Chinese CROs potentially affected by the Biosafety Act have had face-to-face discussions with numerous clients. Many clients expressed that they struggle to find a more cost-effective CRO than those in China. A U.S. pharmaceutical company stated, "Switching CROs would mean a cost increase of over 30% and greater uncertainty."
Of course, some investors are also designing around geopolitical risks. This shift is reflected in deal structures and corporate layouts. Singapore has emerged as a path some Chinese biotech companies are exploring: establishing regional headquarters, IP, or clinical entities there to advance registration and commercialization in ASEAN, Japan, and South Korea. An investor who has long tracked the Asian market described this as a phased organizational arrangement-retaining China's R&D efficiency while adding an interface more conducive to cross-regional communication and coordination.
Undeniably, JPM 2026 may mark a turning point: Chinese biotech is evolving from a "chosen one" to a "co-decision-maker." Short-term deals will continue, but what will truly reshape the industry landscape is the formation of long-term collaborations.
