当创新药百亿美元授权大单成为常态化后，中国药企如何避免‘卖青苗’

An article titled "When US$10 Billion Innovative Drug Licensing Deals Become the Norm, How Can Chinese Drugmakers Avoid ‘Selling the Seedlings’" discussed that Innovent Biologics’s US$10.5 billion oncology collaboration with Pfizer extended the recent wave of large Chinese biotech out-licensing deals, while arguing that the key issue was whether Chinese drugmakers could move beyond short-term upfront and milestone payments by retaining a role in overseas development, commercialization, and capability-building.

The article mentioned that at the 2026 ChinaBio Partnering Forum, Chuan Sun, managing partner of the Shanghai and Hong Kong offices at Morrison Foerster, said that “out-licensing” was a relatively straightforward transaction model and was highly attractive to companies that were capital-constrained or seeking funding without taking on R&D risk. However, once the relevant assets were licensed, especially for markets outside China, biotech companies often needed to give up a degree of control, flexibility, and governance over those assets.

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