Ep. 315 - China Speed: Data, Deals, First in Class

Dealmaking between Western and Chinese biopharmas has been one of the year’s bright spots, as a maturing biotech landscape in China converges with Western demand for innovative assets, driving record deal flow. At the same time, the Hong Kong stock exchange has emerged as the hottest market for biotech IPOs, at a time when the NASDAQ window remains shut.
These themes will be in the spotlight at the 12th BioCentury-BayHelix China Healthcare Summit Oct. 22-24 in Shanghai. On this special edition of the BioCentury This Week podcast, a trio of biopharma leaders join BioCentury’s analysts to discuss the landscape: McKinsey's Franck Le Deu, former BD executive Ji Li, and HBM Holdings' Mike Patten.
BioCentury, BayHelix and Insights Partner McKinsey & Company invite you to visit Shanghai for the 12th China Healthcare Summit at the St. Regis Shanghai Jingan. For more information, click here; to apply to join the 2025 Class of Presenting Companies click here.

View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/656773

#ChinaBiotech #CrossBorderDeals #HongKongIPO #BiotechInvesting #LifeSciencesFinance

00:00 - Introduction
02:09 – Key Trends
06:03 – View from McKinsey
13:36 – Evolution of Deal Landscape
20:24 – Learning from China
24:00 – China-China M&A & NewCos

To submit a question to BioCentury’s editors, email the BioCentury This Week team at podcasts@biocentury.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:09 Key Trends
• 6:03 View from McKinsey
• 13:36 Evolution of Deal Landscape
• 20:24 Learning from China
• 24:00 China-China M&A & NewCos

Transcript

0:00

[ AI-generated transcript ]

Jeff Cranmer: 0:01

Dealmaking between Western and China biotechs has been one of the bright spots of 2025. As the maturing biotech landscape in China converges with Western demand for innovative assets leading to record deal flow. At the same time, the Hong Kong stock exchange has become the hottest market for the biotech sector at a time when the IPO window remains shut. On Nasdaq, the themes of China's burgeoning biotech innovation, deal making strategies, and green shoots of financing are central to what we here at BioCentury, and at McKinsey And at BayHelix will be discussing, with, friends, colleagues, VCs. top deal makers from the West and East on stage in the hallways and at the networking receptions of the BioCentury BayHelix China Healthcare Summit this October. And McKinsey once again will be our Insights Partner. On today's BioCentury this week podcast, we've invited a few, uh, special guests to join us to talk about. How China is. Well, China's hot at the moment. Joining me are Franck Le Deu, a senior partner at McKinsey, where he co-leads the firm's Asia healthcare practice. Ji Li, a former top BD executive at Biopharma, such as Merck in Beijing, now known as B one. G is now a consultant on cross border deals. And we also have Mike Patten, the, recently installed Chief Strategy Officer at Harbour BioMed. Mike, was formerly the head of equity and venture capital at BMS, and from the BioCentury side, we're joined by Josh Berlin. He's the head of BD for BioCentury and VP and Editor in Chief Simone Fishburn, who of course is something of a fixture on both of our podcasts Okay. I'd like to bring in Simone now to kick us off. Simone, you just completed an analysis of nearly 200 East West deals. we will be digging into that in a bit, but I wanted to ask you upfront, what are some of the key trends that you saw while doing that analysis?

Simone Fishburn: 2:25

Thank you Jeff. and really what fun to be on this podcast. I'm not talking tennis today, which most of our people know is, is a recurring feature, but I will say there are some really good Chinese tennis players coming through. But anyway, moving on to deals. Right. Well, the reason we did this analysis is that. You know, it's sort of axiomatic now that China is really a source of innovation. And so what we really wanted to do was to dig into the details underlying it and who's buying what and how much. I'm just gonna give you three highlights that I, I want people to think about. So for us and many people who read it, one of the big surprises is the numbers of Western biotechs rather than MNCs doing deals with China licensors. So it's well known that the MNCs, the pharmas, have been out shopping for deals. But actually two thirds of the deal volume with China license source, was to western biotechs. And I thought that was really interesting. So that's a new dynamic that is, is reshaping, I think, global bd, not a big surprise file under, not a big surprise. The second thing, and that is the increase in number of deals. This is going back to the start of. 2023. Okay. But the increase in number of deals in immunity and inflammation and more recently in obesity. And why is that not a big surprise? Because anybody, Franck, I know you're gonna talk about this, anybody who's been watching China knows if there's a hot area they're gonna go in and they are gonna get in fast and they are going to, you know, you're gonna see tremendous value created for all the reasons we are gonna go into. and I want to point out that those obesity deals. We're mostly north of $2 billion in total deal value. So these are not nickel and dime deals. Right. And the third one I'm gonna file under, not a surprise for us, but maybe a little bit of a surprise for some people. Who still continue to believe that China is a sort of fast follower environment, the proportion of first in class assets in those deals. So first, what we call first order innovation is coming from China. Anybody who thinks that that is not happening head in the sand. So about 40% of the deals that disclosed to target were potential first in class products. The biggest group was new modalities, which means people, for example, taking a new, like a bispecific or an ADC to create a therapy that would be better than something where there's, let's say, a, a monoclonal or a small molecule. But the last thing I wanna say is it does not stop there. A substantial number of the first in class assets were novel targets. And this is something I'm quite often asked, like, yeah, yeah, there's innovation, but do they really, you know, explore new biology and new targets? And the answer is yes. And so China, I think it's not so much a questioning of the biology, but a question of the risk appetite. And so what we see is that China innovators are willing to take risks on new targets, and so are their licensees, the people they're partnering with. So I'm gonna stop there, Jeff. Those are my three, um, three take homes, if that's

Jeff Cranmer: 5:55

Excellent. And we'll, we'll tuck into some of the numbers and, other, uh, ways in which you slice and dice those data, in a little bit. But I wanna bring in Franck now, Franck. Is a, frequent guest on the podcast, and, he, has been instrumental in helping us put on several of our conferences the years. And, uh, if you follow his LinkedIn, you'll know that He has been, uh, picking apart the different deals that he is seeing, it almost feels like, uh, every day at this point. And so, Franck, I, I'd just like to ask you from your perspective, what are you seeing in terms of what's going on with these East West deals in particular with, the larger companies from the West, the MNCs.

Franck Le Deu: 6:36

Sure, Jeff, uh, Jeff and, and more the team here on, on the podcast. Thanks for having me again. Always a pleasure to join you guys and share some of my thoughts. I think first maybe it's, it's helpful maybe to, uh, to step back a little bit. I know, that Simone talked about this new trend in 2025, or at least accelerating trend, I guess, and I, I know that. JP Morgan this year was a wake up call for many people in the industry, but for us and who've been following this for a decade now, this wasn't far from being a surprise, right? We actually have seen heavy interest from some multinationals for quite some time now in China. I think what has changed is that this interest is now broad based. Like all top 20 or top 25 multinationals are now showing interest in sourcing. Innovation from China and actually morely from Asia and talk about it and are taking action behind it, putting goods on the ground specifically. in Mainland China. But we also see, as you said earlier, uh, Simone, a lot of biotech companies are trying to take advantage of the opportunity. If we step back. This is driven really by, I guess converging, converging trends, that are perfect match On one hand, multinationals and biotech are clearly looking for ways to, enrich their pipelines. We know that there's a significant, uh, patent expiry cliff, uh, coming up in 2020. I think by some estimate, over $200 billion of revenues will disappear. So that creates a need for companies to transform their R&D engine, including planning more sources of innovation, clearly as well, geopolitics. We won't talk much about geopolitics today, but even though it's hanging in the background, it hasn't yet, deterred companies from taking action, right? They still see a path to actually sourcing innovation from China and even the current, uh, US China context. also, quite frankly, the track record of the first deals in between 23, 24, even before that, has given more confidence to some of the earlier player that there was something real in China. And I, I would say that, to some extent, a, a fear of missing out are starting to creep in, in the rest of the multinationals. And as well a few success stories, for biotech companies has created, an urge for a broader set of biotech to jump in, right. And make sure that they don't miss something. And then let's not forget on the local side, there's an urgent, acute need to find partners. And yes, the Hong Kong Exchange is better. but frankly crashed. So it's just a recovery from a low point. Yes. The IPO window is, open again, which is great, but local companies are still struggling to find means to support their development. And for them, the stream of revenues they can get from upfront payment, in particular in deal making is vital. The, the Chinese market for innovation itself, while it's growing, is still not at the scale that you would need to support a full innovation ecosystem of local companies. Pricing is is an issue still. competition is cutthroat. It is very expensive to compete in China, which means that only at scale companies can take advantage of that. So that's the context. Then what do we see and why do we believe this is actually a trend that will reshape the global biopharma industry? We see six reasons actually. And my colleague in our China practice just released a report on that, that, I will just give you a takeaway first. I think as Simone shown, this is way beyond oncology. This is expanding into new therapeutic areas, metabolism, neurology, immunology, et cetera. Two, it is beyond ADCs and MABs like, you know, people talked a lot about the ADC power of China, but this is actually going now into next generation platforms, cell engine therapies, RNA therapies, radioligand therapies, et cetera. So way beyond ADCs. It is also beyond fast following, and we start to see the cultivation of novel biological discoveries. China is catching up with Germany and Japan, for example, on the number of high quality research papers that are seated in the top tier journals. We believe that there is a potential for first in class assets to come from China, not today, August 13th, 2025, but certainly in the near future beyond labor cost. China R&D is just faster, and as you know, speed in R&D is extremely important. Why is China faster? We looked into the topic. We think that they have re-engineered basically end-to-end, how to develop drugs from discovery to, clinics. And they do that in a very systematic, way. they leverage a very agile clinical research ecosystem that has no equivalent in the world. And also they apply a focused execution mindset, but is also quite unique if you think about their work ethics. the ability to really mobilize beyond clear goals. two more points. I.

Simone Fishburn: 11:21

Franck, lemme jump in. to ask you and the other panelists this. we know about the energy in China and the commitment, but I wanted to know couple of things. One is how much do you think this is a feature, the deal making, the success of the ability to go very fast into the clinic, and how much of a sort of leg up does that provide? China researchers? Over their counterparts in the west. and then the other question is this, there's sort of. This notion that I've heard that there was a lot of money that went in in 1919, sorry, wrong century. Um, 2020. um, this is sort of e everybody, you all may wanna respond to this. A lot of money went in, in, in 2019, 2020, 2021. Created a lot of new companies and now we're actually starting to see the fruits of that money in these companies bringing. assets and programs that can be partnered. So who wants to pick that up? But I don't, I don't know, Franck, if you've got a response and then maybe I've, I've ruined your plan, Jeff. I know,

Franck Le Deu: 12:24

No, no, no, no worries. I was just like going to quickly touch on, I got your point. I probably went over a little bit, but on point of number five, clinical trial, China is expanding beyond China. Right? And that's very important to, to make the assets more attractive for global partners. And also beyond the bench, China is scaling robotics and AI. We probably wont talk about that today and to your two questions. I think the speed is the name of a game, right? when assets actually have limited differentiation. When China is able to bring assets that are really competitive on many aspects of their clinical profile, the speed is the name of the game. We believe that the speed of China means that. unlike what we have seen in the past where you need, basically need to be in the top three to reach a market for any new, new type of, drug class. And maybe the speed of China will allow more competitors to join the market. And we may be seeing that in metabolic already, for example. And we saw it in PD-1, on the maturation of the pipeline of companies that were created a few years back. I think that's both right. And, but we also see companies that were set up very, very recently actually come up with interesting. Assets that are also available. And there's also a large number of companies who actually have failed in virtualize ecosystem. We, we talk less about those ones, but there are some as well. Right? It's not all success.

Ji Li: 13:35

so Franck, just to follow up regarding the, the speed of China, right. So, so that generated two general responses from different categories of company in the multinational circle. There's a belief that, they pretty much give up to do anything internally. If something get published in a paper you know, if, if they wait for the internal bureaucrat system to get this up and running, the joke was, you know, you go to China, they give you a clinical candidate already. So they pretty much, resigned to the fact that you go to China to find these things. But on the other side of the ecosystem, the earlier stage, central capital incubating new company, it generate fear. Because they do not want to disclose what they're working on, knowing once that become the public domain, they will be swamped by dozens of, you know, projects that go past them. So that's a really interesting, effect that have, my, observation in, in the last, I would say year or two. it, it's become very obvious. It is indispensable for China to be part of our ecosystem. Right? but that thing has evolved in the last, I would say, six to 12 months. What you can see is beside the biopharma biotech that you've seen that has been funded in the last five, 10 years, the major domestic farmer in China has entered the fray. And these people are much more well financed. Much more capable in terms of clinical development. So all of a sudden they're generating Post-POC or even later stage program that has created fierce competition among the MNC. Try to acquire these program, try to fill their late stage pipeline gap. And that is something, really become competitive in the late stage deal making. In contrary in the early stage where, you know, we talk about a lot of the new codes and VC backed, uh, uh, biotech, those remain pretty much in the favor of the buyer, if you will, because there are hundreds of company competing in the same space. You really need to be standing out. To be, a winner like what Harbour has done recently. Right. so it is become a two different trend. I see. They're both competitive. I think in the late stage. Some of the program has generated or command, very little discount. I would argue they, they're starting to generate premium while in the early stage you can still find bargain you know, at a discount if you will.

Josh Berlin: 16:08

Ji, this is Josh. Maybe I'll, I'll jump in also. And, and Mike, I, I wanted to sort of turn the conversation to you as well.'cause, you know, one of the things I think we're seeing is, um, also a move to, strategic collaborations as well. there's been a, a, a couple of really high profile, examples of that, and I think one of the earlier ones, I saying early, but only five months ago. That's, I guess, China speed for you. But I thought, um, you know, one of the earlier, ones, at least this year that sort of pointed towards, a strategic collaboration was that deal you guys did with. With AstraZeneca, back in, in March, I believe it was. So, can you tell us a little bit about that deal and what the thinking was for Harbour and, and how you see that, evolving, in the, uh, you know, are, we're gonna see more of these sort of strategic collaborations, in other words.

Mike Patten: 16:53

Absolutely. Yeah. thank you. Thank you Josh and the BioCentury team. It's a pleasure to join you today and, and indeed, you know, this is really exciting times at at Harbour as you know, as you've highlighted in the discussion, but also in your, your recent analysis. And, yeah, I mean, I think AstraZeneca, our, you know, our collaboration with AstraZeneca is. Exciting obviously for Harbour, but it's also significant for the region, you know, five months ago and really being the first major collaboration of its type in being a, you know, multi-program, multi-year research collaboration focused on the discovery of the next generation multispecifics, focused on also oncology and immunology. In terms of the structure of the deal, this is five year initial, term with the option to extend by another five years, and also included a significant equity investment of over a hundred million dollars. So really representing significant commitment to the relationship and also the future of of Harbour by AstraZeneca. You mentioned this was, you know, five months ago. and really that was sort of the marker of deals to come and, and really as we're seeing is, just been the beginning of significant collaborations, not just for Harbour, but also for peers in our region. And as, mentioned by, Franck and Ji, I think, you know, I think Ji mentioned about China speed that we're seeing a rapid evolution of, of these deals and the collaborations as those groups are really sophisticated in, in deal making and looking at how the region can really support, you know, Western development and, and other regions that I think we're going to see, aspects of the stage of the deals as we talked about clinical. research and how China and, working in China can help leverage that. And I think we'll see more and more of that being a key component of collaborations going forward and that we will really see a real shift away from these transactional one asset programs to multi-asset collaborations as we go forwaR&D. And so I, I expect that when we meet again in a year's time, we'll be talking about completely different, deal structures.

Simone Fishburn: 18:57

So Mike, that is interesting one of the things that we found when we looked to this analysis as, as Jeff said, it turned out that there were 198 deals. Right now, about 90% of them were focused on products. They may be multiple products focused on products, but a growing trend is actually partnering to, what we call enabling technologies. So you might go license an antibody in order to make an ADC we are starting to see much more different kinds of deals than exactly what you said. Not just go and in, get the asset go home kind of thing. Actually, I have a kind of a question for you all. You know what we hear here all the time, we hear from VCs and we hear from pharmas. I'm spending much more time on the ground in China. So in China, are there VCs of pharmas like walking around notably much more than before? Is it, is it something palpable that you see, is there that kind of energy walking around an interest, you know, when you did your deal, was there a lot of inbound.

Mike Patten: 19:58

I think absolutely. I think, I think everybody is, has some, some presence in China and I think, certainly from. my experience, I think you're seeing that companies who don't have an established footprint in China are finding out very quickly that they need to have that to be successful. I'm sure Ji, and and Franck have have observations on that as well.

Simone Fishburn: 20:19

Or they need to come to conference.

Franck Le Deu: 20:23

It's very clear Simone, and know, uh, being in our position in China know we, we, get. Request frequently from some of our clients or non clients who ask us, okay, what's the best way to set up a BD team in China? and we see as well many of our colleagues or ex-colleagues being actually poached or approached to to fill this type of position. We also see almost on a weekly basis, some of the bigger names hold, annual biotech conference in China where they actually, you know, bring together the network of biotechs and present what they do as a company, what they want to do. Which is, as you mentioned, beyond just sourcing particular asset. It's now about sourcing technology and also the next frontier I think is about partnering to actually impact the way the big pharma works in R&D. I think there's a lot of interest for some of the global health R&D worldwide to figure out what is it exactly that China has as a secret sauce that could help transform the global R&D organization, which are often seen as a little bit bloated, inefficient. And maybe in need of an injection of China speed. And that I think to me, is one of the most interesting topic that will play out in the few years.

Ji Li: 21:30

just to follow up in terms of the, on the ground, I'm sure Franck can tell you, I mean, the joke is if, if a particular week, if there's not an MNC in town in Shanghai, something is wrong. That was a joke. So they go through every week and plus all kinds of local partnering conference. So, so it's really a super active, scenes there. But getting back to, regarding, technology or platform collaboration. I think if you look at some of the newly emerged platform, Next generation RNAi, in vivo CAR T, you name it. You know, these are things actually that Chinese biotech are at the forefront. the gap between them and the, the western counterparts are, you know, I think narrowing or even in many cases, they're leading, you know, in the case of in vivo CAR, I'm sure you guys saw that. so I think, the ecosystem will continually evolve and, uh, I wouldn't be surprised, like Simone said earlier, the truly first in class asset will emerge and more and more as we go forward.

Josh Berlin: 22:31

So, Ji, let, let me ask you this. Um, you know, you're, you're dealing with, you know, a lot of clients, you're, you're involved in a lot of negotiations with deals ones, we've seen the press releases on. Sure there are a bunch of others that didn't come, come to fruition. But how are you seeing, um, the deal terms, evolving over time? You know, as the demand has, continued to increase for, finding, assets, de-risked assets in China, you know, is that leading to to China biotechs being able to get better terms? Are there, are there things you're seeing. in the negotiations that are, you know, maybe different now versus, versus a year ago or six months ago in terms of leverage on deal terms.

Ji Li: 23:10

Yeah, no. as I said earlier, especially the sort of late clinical stage assets are very rare. oftentimes, the Chinese biopharma will be able to bring us assets with. Is hundreds if not thousands of patient experience. You just don't see that anymore. most of the small biotech in the western part of world couldn't quite deliver that sort of a data package. Therefore, that gave us a lot of leverage in the negotiation. In terms of not just, you know, the pure cash up front, but also the whole package, right? Oftentimes involve more participation and equity, et cetera, et cetera. So I think, these late stage assets become increasingly competitive for the MNCs. And, they all openly talk about there's no more China discount.

Josh Berlin: 23:58

Yeah. one more trend. You know, Franck, Jeff plugged your, uh. Your LinkedIn site earlier, which I agree is, is one that folks should be, following. But, um, you know, there was a, a, a deal recently that you commented on that, uh, we were also sort of kicking around at BioCentury, which was, the takeout of, the China biotech LaNova by, Sino Biopharma. You know, historically there hasn't been a whole lot of M&A within in the China market. And here, you know, is a, I think a great example of, um, more traditional China pharma. acquiring a China biotech, is that, is that something you guys are expecting to see more of? Is, is that something McKinsey's been following?

Franck Le Deu: 24:35

it was not a surprise to us to see that type of deal finally come through because, I mean, I can be corrected by Mike, Ji, or Simone, but I think this was actually the first sizable, China-China deal, right? Uh, as an M&A, I think it's welcome by the industry because it offers another exit for the biotech entrepreneur. some of those large traditional Chinese pharma companies have very deep pocket. Many of them are in the process of transitioning from largely, largely generic businesses to innovation businesses, whether they are state on enterprises or private companies like for example, Hengrui, which is one of the most active name and probably ahead of many other companies in terms of making that transformation towards innovation. So, no, it's not a surprise and it's a welcome, a welcome addition, I guess, to the, ecosystem because we do need a capital market that works. We do need an m and a market that works, and this cannot just be a channel to the west. There also needs to be a, a healthy channel to China, ecosystem emerging in terms of transactions.

Ji Li: 25:34

Actually for the longest time you, you don't see much M&A, within the domestic, ecosystem. And just simply because the traditional pharma has really hard time to value these early stage assets. If you have something very close to the market, they can tell you what would be the market penetration. Their, they can give you a good, sales forecast. But for these early stage stuff, they, typically struggle. So that's

Simone Fishburn: 25:57

gee, they've been doing, they've been doing early stage deals with western biotechs forever, so they do know how to put a value on them. They may have a different risk profile or something depending on, I don't know, geopolitics. But, they've been doing a lot of early stage deals for a long while.

Ji Li: 26:16

Um, you know, many of these probably are early technology and stuff like that in terms of like pipeline. if you ask the domestic pharma today, they're most. Looking for close to market stage, you know, opportunity X China. so that's why this deal is very significant. and also it's more significant in light of the very, very hot Hong Kong stock exchange, right? Because, a company like, you know, but they do have the other paths for exit and they chose to be acquired by a domestic farmer.

Josh Berlin: 26:47

One, you know, one, one other, hot topic obviously that we haven't talked about yet is, is sort of the NewCo model and, the NewCo deal flow. love to hear your guys' thoughts on that. Mike, I know you guys were involved in the Windward deal, for instance. You any, sort of insights on what people should think about in terms of, opportunities for NewCos versus licensing deal.

Mike Patten: 27:07

Yeah. No, we were very excited to be part of, of Windward and to, to see that company grow. the opportunities there. I mean, I think, I think there's still opportunities for NewCos. I think as you, you've highlighted it in your analysis, obviously the market is, changing again quickly. And so the opportunities for groups who would back, NewCos are changing. And, and I think that's. Also an opportunity for Harbour and we're, you know, we're speaking with groups to really think about what's the next phase for NewCos. I think there's still an opportunity there and it's really, completes the circle of the conversation is really that with China biotech, there's a lot of opportunities for flexible deal structures, a lot of synergistic ways of working with venture biotech all over to really ensure that we're progressing innovative therapies for patients. And so I think that you'll still see them, but the nature of those NewCos will, will be changing in terms of how. the underlying deal structure of maybe licensing the stage that they happen. And as we've also talked about how the nature of those collaborations and the involvement potentially of the Chinese biotech or Asian biotech will be is that NewCo matures as well. so that's I think a, an interesting space, uh, to watch and, and hopefully we'll have some more news from Harbour in the coming, in the coming months.

Ji Li: 28:23

the other new phenomena in recent, because of . The Hong Kong stock exchange performance. Many of the China private biotech are trying to go public. as Franck know, there is a strict, you know, guideline in terms of what they need to do to qualify. So therefore, that's starting to affect if they would do a partnership to give away their lead asset because they need to have like a phase two asset. you know, so sometime they will say, Hey, we need to keep our lead asset because we're qualified to go public. So that becomes, you know, whether that's a NewCo or a, a regular partnership that's starting to have an effect on, you know, the management and, and, and board of these company when they think about partnership. So it'll be interesting to see how this evolve.

Jeff Cranmer: 29:05

Yeah, it's, been a great year for IPOs in Hong Kong. there's also been some activity in Korea, and I think together they outstrip. what's been happening on Nasdaq and how's, how's the environment for follow on financing in Hong Kong? Ji..

Ji Li: 29:19

Well, that's an interesting thing. You know, Franck, maybe you have more data point in that regard when you guys do your analysis. I think as you said, this is coming out of a multi-year goal, right? I don't know where is the expectation is when these follow up financing started to happen because, you know, many of the stock, I look at it this year, they not only, double, they triple, they quadruple from their loan. So, you know, at some point I would think they will leverage the market to, to put in some, uh, money from the market. Yeah.

Franck Le Deu: 29:50

Yeah, no, we don't have data yet. We, our team is still working on the report. We'll present in, in Shanghai end of October. So you have to be at the Summit, I guess, too. It an answer to that question.

Jeff Cranmer: 30:01

Excellent.

Simone Fishburn: 30:01

a layout for you that. Jeff.

Jeff Cranmer: 30:03

That's a layup for me. I mean, uh, gosh. Uh, this has been a lot of fun. Um, I, I would just like to say, uh. There's still time to register for the conference. it kicks off on October 22nd and it runs until the 24th. If you can't make it to Shanghai, you can register to attend digitally. head to BioCentury China to register and learn more about the program. I am still recruiting, presenting companies. We'd love to. get some companies from the U.S., from Europe, from Canada, out to see firsthand what's going on, and we pride ourselves on having the right people in the room at our conferences. And it'd be a great place to talk deals, to talk financings and, you know, you get to meet Josh and talk tennis with Simone on top of everything else. And, and Josh didn't we just add a, pre-event networking.

Josh Berlin: 30:58

that's right.

Jeff Cranmer: 30:58

what, what, what is that? It's like visiting some kind of cool research park, isn't it?

Josh Berlin: 31:03

we will, yes. So on the first day we're gonna, our first morning before the the conference starts, we're gonna take a, uh, a bus tour of Zhangjiang Park, which is top science, the technology park there in Shanghai. you know, we're big believers in, you gotta see it. I, think you really have to see. what's happening in China? See the scale. See how, so many different companies, from MNCs to China, biotechs to CDMOs, are all located there in the park. So, that's a benefit of, attending the event. And, as, Franck also alluded to, you know, McKinsey, which is our longtime insights partner, will be releasing its conference report. You know, always a lot of data that folks like to get their hands on. So that'll also be a, a key feature of the event. And, you know, lots of. Networking and, and opportunities for partnering and learning as well. So we hope to see you out in, uh, Shanghai, October 22 to 24.

Jeff Cranmer: 31:55

Excellent and lot, lots of VCs will be there. And this year, Josh, right? And, quite a few Pharma, BD and L people.

Josh Berlin: 32:01

We have, an unbelievable, amount of, uh, Western, VCs and biopharma execs coming out this year. And then, uh, as always, sort of a who's who of China biotech, VCs and, and CEOs and, all the MNCs, the, the big pharma will be there both at the BD&L level as well as the, uh, the China GM level.

Jeff Cranmer: 32:21

Excellent. Well, I think this is a, a great point to thank our guests and, uh, sign off. Mike, I wanted to mention that we recently did an analysis, Kind of off the back of Simone's analysis that looked at who are the top, deal makers and Harbour was number one the China biotech side. And, and, uh, was it AstraZeneca? Simone, that was, uh, number one. Yeah. Ji shaking his

Simone Fishburn: 32:45

AstraZeneca by some way, but I actually, in terms of the licensees, of course, GSK was second. I actually wanna make the point there. BioNTech have also done a whole bunch of deals. So they're not a pharma, but they dealing like a pharma. I gotta tell you.

Jeff Cranmer: 32:59

And Biocytogen, again, on the China side, very, very active. Well, Mike, Franck, Ji thank you so much for sharing your insights. Franck. Looking forward to the report. definitely. Uh. Put an extra pot of coffee on for, uh, Fangning and Josie and the team. And, Ji uh, hope to talk soon. And as always, Simone Josh. thanks for joining. And a special thanks to, Kendall Square Orchestra, which provides the music for all of BioCentury podcasts.