Pharma sees expanding deals with Chinese companies

Big Pharma sees Chinese pharma and biotech companies as increasingly attractive to do deals with as the quality of work coming from those companies has been steadily increasing, according to two U.S. pharma executives.

Merck Vice President, Business Development and Licensing Lizabeth Leveille, said that the company has done several deals with Chinese companies since 2024 across several modalities. She noted that while China has always had a pharma and biotech presence, in the last couple of years, the richness of the opportunities there has greatly improved.

Leveille was part of a panel on trends in dealmaking Wednesday at the BIO International Convention in Boston.

In December 2024, Merck (NYSE:MRK) gained global rights, except China, for Hansoh Pharma’s oral GLP-1 receptor agonist for obesity, HS-10535, in a deal worth up to $2B. In November of the same year, the pharma giant inked a deal worth up to $3.3B with Chinese biotech LaNova Medicines for a cancer asset. And in March 2024, Merck gained ex-China rights to HRS-5346, a small molecule lipoprotein(“a”) inhibitor from Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals in a deal worth up to $2B.

Novartis (NYSE:NVS) Global Head, Search & Evaluation, Corporate & Business Development, Paul Thibodeau said that while Chinese firms are producing high-quality assets that tend to be follow-ons, companies are expanding into biologics, novel approaches, and first-in-class targets.

Michal Preminger, who until recently was Regional Head of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) innovation, East North America, noted she has been seeing increasing interest from companies to do deals with Chinese companies earlier in the development cycle.

She added that Chinese firms provide an “arbitrage opportunity,” and in the future, these companies could become more vertically integrated. She added that in the future, it could be possible that some Chinese companies market their drugs on their own.