Ep. 113 - Frank Jiang on Hengrui’s rise and China’s new era of biopharma dealmaking

Can you take us through this evolution? Uh, was the key the reforms of a decade ago?

Was the key of the reform, um, uh, that took place at ten years ago, I think that's your, uh, comment.

And, and I think you're right, and there are three key drivers, in my view, that has led to this, uh, evolution of innovation journey.

The first one really is the, um, significant unmet medical need.

If you were to look at cancer as an example, between two largest cancer country, China and the US, uh, we would have twice as many of new cases each year, uh, compared to that in the US.

Whereas if you look at the five-year survival rate, then China will fall significantly short, something like thirty to forty percent, whereas US would be seventy percent.

Um, one of the critical components is that, uh, we're lacking of affordable innovative medicines.

And, uh, it's not surprising if you were to look at US market, eighty percent of the, uh, uh components are innovative medicines, whereas in China, less than fifteen.

So there is a strong desire to, um, develop innovative medicines and, uh, to address the significant unmet, unmet medical needs.

Uh, there's a second driver, which is really, uh, there's a series, um, pro, uh, sort of innovation policies released by Chinese government.

Uh, one of them is the regulatory reform, and by far the most impactful, and, uh, having, um, accelerating the, uh, approval timeline for IND and, uh, NDA that, uh, certainly put China into the global development map.

Joining ICH is also an important, um, approach to, um, put the data quality, um, consistency, uh, into the, again, global development.

And attracting the, uh, fund, um, uh, private, private fund especially to, uh, to support the, uh, innovation, uh, development is also very important.

As you know, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, um, modified the rules, um, therefore the pre-commercialized, uh, company or biotech can be listed and raise money for the R&D activities.

Finally, I think, uh, uh, return on investment is also an important approach to sustaining the R&D, uh, innovation and, uh, the commercial, uh, insurance, uh, that recently has, uh, uh, started would be able to, um, address that.

Um, I think as I said, that's second, um, uh, key driver.

The third, which is, uh, very important to mind is that, uh, uh, our Chinese as a, uh, delivery-focused way of working is very critical.

Yeah, let's dig into that a little bit.