BioCentury
ARTICLE | Product Development

Speed of China’s early clinical trials raises bar for Western biotechs 

Faster recruitment is the biggest factor, but it’s not the only driver of China’s new edge

April 17, 2025 11:19 PM UTC

As China biotechs raise their profile on the global stage, they may have cracked one of the key bottlenecks for both speeding up and de-risking early drug development — the ability to test compounds in humans, fast. The question for Western biotechs is how they can adjust to meet this newly raised bar.

China’s biotech ecosystem has gained newfound respect, and ruffled a few feathers, with a spate of East-West deals and NewCo model start-ups, in which pharmas and investors have licensed China assets to fill pipelines or spawn new companies in the West. In many cases, these assets have had at least preliminary clinical data that provide an indication of how the molecules will behave in humans...

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