China biotech and the bear: a Perspective
Deal-making with the West offers a path through uncertain times, but in what position will China biotechs emerge from the bear?
Welcome to Shanghai, where a raft of licensing deals centered on new modalities, a handful of high-profile takeouts and a new style of start-up has invigorated the local biotech industry.
The mood in the hallways, tea garden and bar of the eleventh BioCentury-BayHelix China Healthcare Summit at the St. Regis Jing’an has brightened enormously since the tenth edition of the meeting last fall. But the ongoing hangover from the lingering bear market, China biotech’s first, is still palpable. And a new cross-border strategy — housing China assets in U.S. newcos — offers a promising path to generating cash and getting Chinese innovation into the West but leaves one wondering whether this could turn China’s biotech industry into an innovation engine for the West, rather than a thriving biotech ecosystem...