Hansoh Pharmaceutical has offered a bullish assessment of China’s innovative biopharma sector, arguing (PDF) that the industry is “fully transitioning from the ‘follower’ phase to the ‘frontrunner’ phase.”
Shanghai-based Hansoh made the argument in its results for the first half of the year. The “frontrunner” line, which was absent from full-year results that Hansoh published (PDF) in March, is underpinned by a slew of data about China’s growing role in discovering and developing drugs.
In the earnings release, Hansoh cited evidence that China now accounts for 30% of investigational medicines. This follows data shared with Fierce this month by market intelligence firm Evaluate, which predicted Chinese assets are positioned to account for more than two-thirds of total licensing deal value this year, compared with 50% last year and just 5% under five years ago.
Hansoh has contributed to China’s rising share of global deal values. In recent years, the company has inked deals with companies including GSK, Merck & Co., Regeneron and Roche. Biotechs have turned to Hansoh for assets too, with Avere Therapeutics among the smaller companies to license molecules.
The Chinese drugmaker used its financial results to provide an update on its latest crop of assets. Over the first half of the year, Hansoh started clinical development of potential treatments for paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria, uncontrolled hypertension and solid tumors with either MTAP deletions or KRAS G12C mutations. An injectable treatment for diabetes and obesity joined the clinical club in July.
Hansoh stepped up spending to support the pipeline of more than 40 innovative medicine candidates that it is assessing in more than 70 clinical trials. R&D spending jumped 20.7% to 1.7 billion Chinese yuan ($253 million) over the first half of the year.
The emergence of Chinese drugmakers as a key source of investigational medicines has raised concerns in parts of the U.S. establishment, leading to proposals to restrict or block U.S. drugmakers’ access to the assets. Yet dealmaking continues apace, and Chinese biotech CEOs recently told Fierce that they are sanguine about the situation.