Reinvested over 100 billion yuan, AstraZeneca continues to "bet on" the Chinese market

On January 29th, UK pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca announced plans to invest over 100 billion yuan in China before 2030 to expand its presence in drug manufacturing and R&D. At the recently concluded 2026 JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, AstraZeneca also frequently made moves against domestic companies.

In recent years, AstraZeneca has continued to ramp up its efforts in the Chinese market. The Chinese market has also rewarded AstraZeneca, which has become the company’s second-largest global market for several consecutive years. Over 40 innovative drugs from AstraZeneca have been launched in China, making it the foreign pharmaceutical company with the highest sales in the Chinese market.

Over 100 billion yuan investment will cover the entire value chain

During UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s visit to China, AstraZeneca announced an investment plan to deepen its commitment to the Chinese market, with over 100 billion yuan to be invested in China before 2030 to expand its drug production and R&D footprint.

AstraZeneca stated that China possesses cutting-edge science in the field of new therapies. This investment will significantly enhance the company’s capabilities in cell therapy and radioligand drugs, promote the development of a broad and diversified product pipeline, and benefit patients with cancer, hematologic diseases, and autoimmune disorders. These investments will cover the complete value chain from drug discovery and clinical development to manufacturing, and through collaborations with leading biotech companies such as Simcere, CSPC Pharmaceutical Group, Polypeptide Group, GSK, and Yuanji Shengtai, will bring Chinese innovative achievements to the global stage. Building on the acquisition of Gengxi Biotech in 2024, AstraZeneca will become the first global biopharmaceutical company in China to possess end-to-end cell therapy capabilities.

Meanwhile, these investments will further deepen AstraZeneca’s R&D layout in China, including global strategic R&D centers located in Beijing and Shanghai, which collaborate with over 500 clinical hospitals and have led numerous global clinical trials over the past three years. The company will also upgrade its manufacturing bases in Wuxi, Taizhou, Qingdao, and Beijing, and announce plans for new production facilities as appropriate. Existing bases are providing innovative medicines to patients in China and over 70 other markets worldwide. Through these investments, AstraZeneca’s workforce in China will exceed 20,000 employees, creating thousands of new jobs across the healthcare ecosystem. As of now, AstraZeneca employs over 17,000 people in China.

China becomes AstraZeneca’s second-largest global market

Headquartered in Cambridge, UK, AstraZeneca focuses on oncology, rare diseases, and prescription medicines across cardiovascular, renal, metabolic, respiratory, and immunology fields, with operations in over 125 countries worldwide.

Prior to this investment, AstraZeneca has been actively increasing its presence in China. Since 2023, AstraZeneca has reached 16 licensing agreements with 15 Chinese partners. In 2025 alone, AstraZeneca partnered with several local companies including CSPC, Polypeptide, GSK, and others. Notably, in June 2025, AstraZeneca reached a partnership with CSPC Group with a potential total transaction value exceeding $5.3 billion. On January 30th, CSPC announced its latest collaboration with AstraZeneca, leveraging CSPC’s proprietary sustained-release drug platform and peptide drug AI discovery platform to jointly develop innovative long-acting peptide drugs, with a potential total value of $18.5 billion. At the recent 2026 JPMorgan Healthcare Conference, AstraZeneca, like many peers, held a “China Innovation Session.”

Currently, AstraZeneca has two global strategic R&D centers in China, leading nearly 20 global clinical trials; it operates four manufacturing and supply bases providing innovative medicines to over 70 markets worldwide, and has regional headquarters in five locations for commercial operations.

Investments in China have also brought tangible benefits to AstraZeneca. Since entering China in 1993, AstraZeneca China has launched over 40 innovative drugs across various fields including oncology, respiratory, cardiovascular, renal, and metabolic diseases. China has become AstraZeneca’s second-largest global market for several consecutive years, and AstraZeneca is the foreign pharmaceutical company with the highest sales in China.

Foreign pharmaceutical companies’ strategies in China are “changing”

The Chinese pharmaceutical market is large enough. Academician Gu Xiaosong of the Chinese Academy of Engineering recently stated publicly that, from the global market landscape, North America currently dominates the biopharmaceutical industry, with the US holding a 44.3% market share, and leading the world in new biopharmaceutical research in 2024. The national biopharmaceutical market is expected to reach 5 trillion yuan in 2025, accounting for 22% of the global market.

Under this trillion-yuan market scale, the strategies of foreign biopharmaceutical companies in China are gradually changing. On one hand, with the advancement of domestic centralized procurement, profit margins for generic drugs have significantly compressed, leading some foreign companies to “withdraw” from certain markets and cancel some drugs, such as Sandoz’s application to cancel three specifications of sitagliptin phosphate tablets, and Pfizer’s cancellation of its linezolid and piperacillin sodium/tazobactam sodium injections. Industry analysts believe that the rapid development and fierce competition in China’s generic drug industry, along with the implementation of centralized procurement policies causing sharp drops in drug prices, have eroded the price advantage of original drugs, with market share being heavily taken by generics. Meanwhile, multinational pharmaceutical companies are streamlining operations and focusing resources on more competitive and profitable product lines. For pipelines and products with low return on investment, companies are proactively abandoning them.

However, abandoning some products does not mean abandoning the market. In the field of innovative drugs, a series of favorable policies, especially the shortened approval cycles for new drugs and adjustments to the national medical insurance catalog, have allowed many foreign products to enter the insurance list, subtly changing foreign companies’ strategies—they are still investing heavily.

In recent years, companies like Roche, AstraZeneca, Lilly, and Medtronic have taken action. Roche launched a new biopharmaceutical manufacturing investment project in China with a total investment of 2.04 billion yuan; AstraZeneca started construction of a new Wuxi small-molecule drug factory with an investment exceeding 3.4 billion yuan. Novo Nordisk announced a 4 billion yuan investment in Tianjin in 2024 for sterile formulation expansion; Lilly invested over 1.4 billion yuan to upgrade its Suzhou factory; Medtronic’s digital healthcare innovation base was also signed and unveiled.

It’s clear that the strategies of foreign pharmaceutical companies in China are evolving. To maintain competitiveness, while withdrawing from some centralized procurement markets, foreign companies are increasing their focus on innovative drugs, prioritizing R&D investments in high-return, market-recognized innovative product pipelines.