Since the first quarter of this year, a "China investment boom" has continued to surge in the circle of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

First, on January 29, AstraZeneca unveiled a 100-billion-yuan investment plan, announcing plans to invest over 100 billion RMB (15 billion USD) in China by 2030 to expand its layout in drug production and R&D.

Two months later, the plan was quickly translated into concrete actions.

On March 19, AstraZeneca announced plans to build a radiopharmaceutical conjugate production and supply base in Guangzhou, specializing in the production of an actinium-225-based radiopharmaceutical conjugate for the treatment of prostate cancer. Through close collaboration with local partners, an efficient production and logistics system will be established to ensure timely cross-regional transportation of products to benefit patients.

On the same day, it also announced the establishment of a cell therapy commercial production and supply base and innovation center in the Lin-gang Special Area of the China (Shanghai) Pilot Free Trade Zone, for the commercial production and supply of autologous CAR-T cell therapies for the Chinese and other Asian markets.

Meanwhile, AstraZeneca will establish the AstraZeneca-Gracell Biotechnologies Cell Therapy Innovation Center in Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park, Shanghai, covering early research, viral vector and plasmid development, analytical testing, clinical production, and regulatory support.

AstraZeneca's move came as no surprise. In 2025, AstraZeneca China ranked first among multinational pharmaceutical companies with a dominant revenue of 6.654 billion USD. Continuously increasing investment in the Chinese market and enhancing localized production capabilities in novel drugs and therapies are a natural continuation of its long-term commitment to the Chinese market.

Eli Lilly is also deepening its supply chain layout in China, aiming to meet the production capacity of its GLP-1 drugs.

On March 11, Eli Lilly announced plans to invest a total of 3 billion USD in the next decade to fully expand its supply chain capacity in China, build a local production and supply system for oral solid preparations, and focus on laying out the production capacity of Orforglipron, its first investigational oral small-molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist.

This investment adopts a model combining internal expansion and external cooperation: on the one hand, relying on the technological and talent advantages of Eli Lilly's Suzhou factory to strengthen production capacity synergy; on the other hand, cooperating with multiple local production partners to release incremental capacity.

On the very same day, Eli Lilly announced a strategic cooperation with Pharmaron, with an expected investment of 200 million USD to support its technological capacity building, with plans to gradually expand the scale in the future based on development.

In addition to Eli Lilly and AstraZeneca, Novartis has also continued to make steady investments in the Chinese market, further confirming the universal trend of multinational pharmaceutical companies deeply cultivating China's industrial chain in this round.

On March 22, during the China Development Forum, Novartis announced that it would continue to increase investment in China, expand its R&D, production and operation layout in the country, with an expected investment of over 3.3 billion RMB to support the innovation and high-quality development of China's biomedical industry.

The 3.3-billion-yuan investment will mainly go to two major projects:

First, a new round of expansion and upgrading of Novartis's Changping factory, with planned continuous investment of about 1.5 billion RMB in the future for the construction of new workshops and supporting facilities, and the introduction of brand-new production technologies and equipment such as sterile preparation processes, liquid filling and packaging;

Second, the Shanghai campus, where Novartis China's headquarters is located, will mark the 10th anniversary of its operation this year. Novartis plans to jointly invest 1.8 billion RMB with investors to launch the construction of the second phase of the Shanghai campus.

The common feature of this round of investment boom is that it no longer focuses on marginal packaging or sub-packaging links, but on cutting-edge fields such as cell therapy, radiopharmaceuticals, and oral GLP-1, deeply binding core production capacity to the Chinese market.

In the past, multinational pharmaceutical companies built factories in China to reduce costs and serve the local market. Today, China is being integrated into the core link of MNCs' global innovative drug supply chains, becoming a "manufacturing hub" and "production capacity hinterland" for the Asian and even global markets.

MNCs' investment in China has entered a new cycle of "production capacity competition". Their considerations include not only achieving localized production, reducing costs and improving efficiency by relying on China's mature and efficient industrial environment, but more importantly, optimizing the cost, efficiency and flexibility of their global supply chains with "China's advantages".

In addition to strengthening supply chain construction, in recent years, as China has accelerated to become an important source of global pharmaceutical innovation, multinational pharmaceutical companies have not only continuously expanded their own R&D investment but also actively explored potential external cooperation opportunities in China's biomedical industry.

While announcing its investment plan, Novartis emphasized that it will actively expand the scale of clinical research in China, accelerate the development of innovative drugs in the Chinese market; meanwhile, leverage the efficiency and quality of China's clinical research to promote early-stage (Phase I/II) clinical studies and accelerate innovative R&D in the global pipeline.

On the other hand, Novartis is also continuously increasing investment in business expansion in China, exploring potential local innovative companies earlier and more deeply, and deepening cooperative innovation with Chinese partners.

Since 2024, Novartis has reached cooperation with a number of Chinese local innovative pharmaceutical companies, with potential investment exceeding 80 billion RMB. These cooperations aim to bring promising innovative achievements in therapeutic fields such as cardiovascular diseases, oncology, kidney diseases, and neuroscience to more patients in need.

Sanofi is no exception. Under the strategic framework of "In China, For China", Sanofi has taken the initiative to expand and promote local cooperation.

Recently, while officially launching its China Innovation and Operations Center in Chengdu, it has also carried out a comprehensive strategic upgrade of its existing China R&D Center in Shanghai, establishing a new legal entity for the R&D Center in Shanghai. The Shanghai R&D Center will become Sanofi's largest translational medicine research center in China.

According to the plan, about one-third of Sanofi's new global research projects will be carried out in China in the future, and China will participate in more than 90% of global simultaneous development projects, promoting innovative outcomes led or deeply participated by China to go global first, so that Chinese patients can benefit from cutting-edge innovative therapies faster.

At the capital level, Sanofi also established a pharmaceutical innovation fund together with Cathay Capital in 2025 to support local innovative projects with global development potential and accelerate the transformation of scientific research achievements into clinical applications. From R&D cooperation to capital linkage, Sanofi is building a multi-dimensional innovation ecosystem.

At the start of 2026, Sanofi has successively completed several heavyweight transactions: cooperating with Sino Biopharmaceutical to develop, produce and commercialize rovatacitinib, a global first-in-class oral small-molecule JAK/ROCK inhibitor, worldwide; making a strategic equity investment in Gobiotech to support the R&D of its molecular glue degrader for sickle cell disease; co-leading the investment in Quxin Bio to advance the clinical development of oral small-molecule inhibitors targeting STAT6 and IL-17.

In the past decade, the playbook of multinational pharmaceutical companies in China was highly consistent: introduction of global pipelines, rapid approval, access to medical insurance, and market expansion—this approach created a "Golden Decade" for China's pharmaceutical development. However, starting from 2025, the playbook is being rewritten.

In that year, both the volume and value of overseas BD transactions by Chinese innovative pharmaceutical companies hit record highs, with more than 150 transactions totaling over 130 billion USD, doubling from the previous year.

Meanwhile, the average total deal value for the world's top 20 MNCs to introduce innovative drugs and technology platforms from China reached as high as 2.756 billion USD, with an average upfront payment of 236 million USD. In comparison, the average total deal value for these MNCs to introduce projects from other regions globally during the same period was only 1.289 billion USD, with an average upfront payment of 153 million USD.

The above series of data indicate that the intrinsic value of China's innovative drugs is being re-evaluated and priced by the international market, and its global competitiveness and asset scarcity are hard to conceal.

Local biotechs are no longer simple followers; they have shown explosive power in early-stage links such as target discovery and molecular design. In fields such as immunology, metabolism, and oncology—once dominated by MNCs—more and more Chinese players are emerging to engage in equal dialogue with international giants with global rights.

The increasingly frequent transactions between MNCs and them also indicate that MNCs are no longer satisfied with merely introducing global innovation to China, but are more comprehensively integrating Chinese innovation into global pipelines. China has grown from a "global innovation importer" to a "key component in the global innovation landscape".

A close look at the details of this round of investment boom reveals that the China strategy of multinational pharmaceutical companies is continuously upgrading, from introducing global products to rooting innovation in China, with the breadth and depth of localization both advancing.

The core force driving this qualitative change is shifting from "market attraction" to "innovation attraction".

In the past, the core logic of multinational pharmaceutical companies' layout in China was the market—China is the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, and a huge patient base means enormous sales space. Today, this logic is being rewritten.

In recent years, the reform of China's pharmaceutical review and approval system has continued to deepen, the speed of innovative drug launches has increased significantly, and the dynamic adjustment of the medical insurance catalog has become more scientific, providing a predictable policy environment for multinational pharmaceutical companies. China is not only a pivotal market but also a key variable driving global healthcare innovation.

A report released by McKinsey pointed out that over the past decade, China's pharmaceutical innovation ecosystem has undergone a profound transformation from catching up to keeping pace. Since the launch of the regulatory reform in 2015 that ignited the innovation engine, to the full alignment with global regulatory standards in 2025, China has emerged as an important force contributing nearly one-third of the global innovative pipeline.

For example, in terms of R&D output, China has achieved a leap from quantitative to qualitative change. In 2015, China only contributed 4% of the global innovative R&D pipeline and licensing transactions; by 2025, this proportion had jumped to 30% and 20% respectively.

In the next-generation therapy field representing the cutting-edge direction, China's performance is particularly outstanding: as of September 2025, China contributed 34% of the global early-stage clinical next-generation therapy pipelines, taking the lead especially in the fields of ADCs and bispecific/trispecific antibodies, accounting for 54% and 48% of the global total respectively.

This leap in innovation strength is reshaping the decision-making logic of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Julio Degerman, General Manager of Eli Lilly China, stated that the rapid development of Eli Lilly China benefits from the support of China's continuously optimized innovation ecosystem. "Currently, China's regulatory standards are increasingly aligned with international standards, the legal and regulatory system is becoming more complete, and the medical insurance payment system is moving towards value-based care. The overall environment is more stable and transparent, giving us greater confidence to adhere to our long-term innovation and production strategy."

Jean-Baptiste Chasseloup de Chatillon, Interim Chief Executive Officer, Executive Vice President and Head of General Medicines Global Business Unit of Sanofi, praised China as "one of the most dynamic pharmaceutical markets in the world" and further stated that "Beijing has great potential to become a global hub for pharmaceutical innovation allocation. With world-class scientific foundations, predictable innovation incentive policies, and faster pathways from evidence generation to market access, it will further unleash innovation vitality."

Based on the profound changes in China's innovation ecosystem, McKinsey pointed out that for multinational pharmaceutical companies, there is an urgent need to redefine their role in China's innovation ecosystem. They should integrate Chinese innovation into global R&D strategies, strengthen scientific and clinical capabilities in China, optimize internal processes to match "China Speed", and avoid missing cooperation opportunities due to insufficient efficiency.

This is exactly the story unfolding right now. When policy certainty replaces market volatility as the core variable, when China's supply chain becomes a global manufacturing hub, and when China upgrades from a sales market to an "innovation source"—a new cycle of pharmaceutical innovation has already begun.

Overall, the strategic upgrade of multinational pharmaceutical companies' investment in China is not only a witness to China's pharmaceutical industry's transition from "catching up" to "keeping pace" but also a microcosm of the restructuring of the global biomedical landscape.

For multinational pharmaceutical companies, investing in China is essentially investing in the future of the pharmaceutical industry; for China's pharmaceutical industry, deep integration with global innovation is an inevitable path to move towards the high-end of the industrial chain.