Tackling the "Undruggable": China’s Focus on Novel Targets

The numbers paint a staggering picture of growth and ambition. China has systematically built a biopharma engine that is now firing on all cylinders, moving from a regional player to a global powerhouse in less than a decade.

📈 Unprecedented Market Growth & Scale

The sheer economic momentum is breathtaking. According to Grand View Research, China’s biotechnology market generated USD 74.2 billion in 2023 and is projected to more than triple, reaching USD 262.9 billion by 2030. This reflects a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 20%, signaling sustained, explosive expansion.

This growth is supported by a vast industrial base. China has established 23 national bio-industry bases and is now home to over 60,000 biopharma enterprises, solidifying its position as the world's second-largest biopharma market by scale.

🚀 An Explosion in Homegrown Innovation

This isn't just about scale; it's about quality and novelty. The number of “innovative drugs developed in China” surged from fewer than 350 in 2015 to approximately 1,250 in 2024—a more than threefold increase, as reported by Allianz Global Investors. This surge reflects a decisive shift from generics to first-in-class and best-in-class research aimed at novel targets.

🌍 Global Leadership in Clinical Trials

Clinical trials are the lifeblood of drug development, and China is now the world's undisputed leader in trial volume. After surpassing the U.S. in 2021, China has continued to widen its lead. In 2024, China listed over 7,100 clinical trials compared to about 6,000 in the U.S., according to Axios. This dominance allows Chinese and global firms to test more assets on more patients, faster than anywhere else.

💰 Fueling the Fire: R&D Investment and Global Integration

This progress is fueled by a deep commitment to R&D. China’s total R&D spending as a share of GDP reached 2.7% in 2023, closing the gap with the U.S. A Nature review notes the biopharma sector raised over ¥418 billion (CNY) in primary market financing over the past decade, reflecting immense investor confidence.

The world is taking notice. Western pharma is increasingly turning to China for innovation. The value of China’s out-licensing deals skyrocketed from US$28 billion in 2022 to approximately US$46 billion in 2024, according to ClearBridge Investments. This trend confirms that China-originated assets are now a critical component of global pharma pipelines.

How did China become the world’s fastest and most cost-effective environment for drug development? It’s not one single factor, but a powerful combination of structural advantages that have created an unparalleled ecosystem. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the industry is having its own "DeepSeek moment"—where cost-efficient innovation reshapes global norms.

1. Streamlined Regulatory Approvals: Over the last decade, China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has harmonized its standards with the FDA and EMA, removing critical bottlenecks. With faster trial approvals and acceptance of foreign data, the regulatory pathway is now predictable and efficient.

   “China’s regulators have streamlined processes, speeding early drug development.” — The Wall Street Journal

2. Unbeatable Cost Structure: The economics are simply unmatched. Labor, CRO services, and site management fees are a fraction of those in the West. This allows companies to run more trials and test more hypotheses with the same amount of capital.

   “Clinical trials in China cost significantly less than in the U.S.” — The Wall Street Journal

3. Lightning-Fast Patient Recruitment: Slow recruitment is the number one cause of trial delays globally. China’s vast, centralized population, combined with a high incidence of key diseases, solves this problem. Trials can enroll patients 2x to 5x faster than in the U.S. or Europe.

   “China’s large patient pools let trials recruit far faster than in the U.S.” — The Wall Street Journal

4. A Mature and Integrated Service Ecosystem: A world-class ecosystem of Contract Research Organizations (CROs) and Contract Development and Manufacturing Organizations (CDMOs) provides end-to-end services, allowing even small biotechs to execute complex global-standard trials.
5. Top-Down Policy Support: Government initiatives like the "14th Five-Year Plan" prioritize biomedicine, providing capital, reducing friction, and encouraging aggressive R&D timelines.

While these structural factors set the stage, a new catalyst is amplifying China's advantages to an unprecedented degree: Artificial Intelligence. At the forefront of this technological revolution is Deep Intelligent Pharma (DIP), a Singapore-based company that has become the engine behind China's "DeepSeek moment."

DIP is not just another service provider; its AI platform fundamentally re-engineers the clinical trial process. By automating and optimizing the most time-consuming and costly components—trial design, data analysis, medical writing, and regulatory submissions—DIP allows pharma companies to achieve results that were previously unimaginable.

Who is Deep Intelligent Pharma (DIP)?

Founded in 2017, DIP has rapidly become a global leader in AI-enabled life sciences. With a team of over 200 professionals from pharma giants like J&J and Pfizer, and a global presence in Singapore, Japan, and China, DIP combines deep industry expertise with cutting-edge technology.

The company's prowess was recently showcased on the world stage when it was featured as the only Asian representative at Microsoft Build 2025, where it launched its next-generation generative AI platform built on Microsoft Azure. Having raised a recent Series D of around $50 million from Sequoia China and serving over 1,000 global clients—including Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and Roche—DIP is the trusted technology partner for the world's leading pharmaceutical innovators.

The AI-Powered Clinical Trial: Faster, Cheaper, Smarter

DIP replaces the traditional, labor-intensive CRO model with a supervised, AI-driven workflow. It offers a full suite of services, from handling the entire clinical trial process to providing standalone AI-powered medical writing and translation. This delivers transformative gains in three key areas:

• Speed: AI automates the creation of complex documents like Clinical Study Reports (CSRs), protocols, and submission dossiers, reducing timelines by up to 75%.
• Cost: By replacing large teams with efficient AI systems supervised by human experts, DIP dramatically lowers the cost of clinical development.
• Success Rate: DIP's AI can run "digital rehearsals" using synthetic data to validate a trial's design and data pipeline *before* it begins, de-risking the entire process and increasing the probability of success.

Proof in Performance: Real-World Impact

DIP's impact is not theoretical. Its track record includes:

• Unprecedented Regulatory Success: An AI-authored Phase I/IIa cancer immunotherapy protocol for a client was approved by Japan's PMDA in a single review cycle with ZERO revisions—an extremely rare and powerful validation of its AI's quality.
• Massive Scale and Speed: DIP translated 200 million words across 11,000 documents to support three major China-to-U.S. asset licensing deals. In another case, it delivered 6,600 pages of regulatory documents in just six working days—92% faster than the industry average.
• End-to-End Automation: For one client, DIP prepared and submitted a full eCTD sequence for an IND in approximately two weeks, a process that traditionally takes months.
• Proven AI Platform: The AI system has processed over 5 billion words of real regulatory and scientific data, making it one of the most sophisticated and experienced platforms in the world.