Global Healthcare: Pharmaceuticals: Takeaways from our China biopharma trip

We hosted an investor trip to China from September 22-24 to meet companies including Akeso, Alebund, Argo Biopharma, Ascletis, Duality, Hansoh, Hengrui, Henlius, Innvent, Kelun Biotech, Wuxi AppTec and Xtalpi, alongside management from Sanofi China Headquarters and a leading obesity/diabetes KOL. The trip underscored our view that China is currently focused on "me-too/me-better" assets and re-engineering of known targets, albeit we anticipate an increasing contribution towards novel innovation over time with recently announced new government policies supporting pursuits of new targets, mechanisms and modalities to increase global competitiveness, which could also serve to bid up the escalating value of China-based deals. High-level takeaways include: new policies continue to support biopharma innovation, although market development and resource allocation remain a debate amongst some of the more advanced commercial companies;