China has now surpassed the US for the number of clinical trials per year, and they're 50-100% faster there, too. U.S. and other Western pharmaceutical firms increasingly license innovative drugs from China; In 2025, deals valued from China accounted for about one-third of big pharma licensing agreements.
The U.S. biotech ecosystem has long been driven by NIH-backed R&D, but that has recently been radically cut. Will this be another case where Trump delivers a win for China? Destroying something at home for right-wing ideological reasons, just to let China swoop in to collect the prize. In this case becoming number 1 in global pharmaceuticals?
Outside America, the rest of the world is a winner here. Chinese industrialisation is driving global deflation and cheaper goods in transport, energy, and computing. It will be great if we can add biotech and pharmaceuticals to that list.
China’s Biotech Is Cheaper and Faster
Not sure that's the case, as the same thing is happening to EU biotech, and Trump isn't president of the EU.
I think US and EU research being extremely inefficient is the more likely explanation. It's not like recently something changed, it's more a catch-up that turned into drive-by, now leaving us in the rearview mirror.
Corrupt... The word you forgot to use is Corrupt
just because China is more efficient doesn't mean it's any less corrupt
This is such a cope lol
China is winning this game while your owners robbed you blind.
you're so close it's painful
I'm not convinced it's efficiency driving the difference.
China have the advantage of lower labour and production costs (although that will change as their economy matures).
Regardless, pharma costs are heavily driven by R&D, risk, and regulation. A huge amount of R&D goes into products that never make it to market, which is a necessary investment. Most (all?) western pharma companies operating in the US have had massive Tort settlements, and their prices have to include a margin to finance that risk (insurance is expensive, if it's even available). Then there's regulation. The US and Europe very heavily regulate these companies. I'd be interested to know how the Chinese regulations compare, especially for Chinese headquartered companies.
Finally, China should be doing more clinical trials than the US + EU combined given the size of their population, so it's great that they're finally developed enough.
I see their growing competitiveness as a natural consequence of their developing economy and not due to any failure in the West.