Launched in the 1970s as a generics company, Hengrui has become China’s leading innovator in R&amp;D and dealmaking, with more than 100 NMEs in the pipeline and broad alliances with GSK and BMS. Under the leadership of Frank Jiang, EVP and chief strategy officer, Hengrui is engaging in a range of dealmaking and using its partnerships as stepping stones toward its goal of becoming one of the top biopharma companies in the world. In conversation with Executive Editor Jeff Cranmer on The BioCentury Show, Jiang describes the evolution of China’s biotech ecosystem — and Hengrui&#x27;s — toward first-order innovation and the changing nature of deals in China, from straightforward licensing deals with “safe money” to NewCo deals and “co-co” partnerships. View full story: https://www.biocentury.com/article/659912 #ChinaBiotech #BiopharmaInnovation #DrugDevelopment #StrategicPartnerships #GlobalBiotech 00:00 - Introduction 01:32 - Evolution of China Biotech 08:43 - China Deals 17:23 - Hengrui’s Evolution 24:43 - Shareholder Base 26:42 - Deals

Ep. 113 - Frank Jiang on Hengrui’s rise and China’s new era of biopharma dealmaking

The BioCentury Show

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The BioCentury Show

## Participants

- **Jeff Cranmer** (BioCentury)
- **Frank Jiang** (Hungry Pharmaceuticals)

## Transcript

This is the BioCentury Show. Brought to you by the 13th China Healthcare Summit. Join BioCentury, Bay Helix and Insights partner McKinsey & Company in Shanghai, November 2nd to 4th for a first-hand look at China's innovation moment. I'm Jeff Cranmer, Executive Editor here at BioCentury. My guest today is Frank Jiang, EVP and Chief Strategy Officer of Hungry Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Jiang has over 40 years of experience in medical practice and pharmaceutical industry leadership. He was the founding CEO and Chairman of Hong Kong listed biotech, Seastone. And before that, he was the Global VP and Head of Asia Pacific R&D at Sanofi.

China's speedy clinical development and robust cross-border dealmaking is the talk of biotech conferences around the globe. As such, there are few people better positioned to discuss China biotech at this time than Dr. Jiang, as Hungry has been one of the most prolific dealmakers of the past few years.

From everything such as NUCO deals with Western VCs to broad alliances with pharma such as GSK and Bristol Myers Squibb. Frank, welcome to the BioCentury Show. Thank you, Jeff. All right. Well, let's set the stage for where Hungry is today by looking at where China biotech is today.

Some of our listeners are well versed in China biotech and some, they still need to see China for themselves and to really understand what's going on. So, Frank, after years as a source for generics and me-toos, China has become a source of innovation fueling pipelines around the world. Can you take us through this evolution? Was the key the reforms of a decade ago?

Was the key of the reform that took place 10 years ago. I think that's your comment. And I think you're right. And there are three key drivers in my view that has led to this evolution of the innovation journey. The first one really is the significant medical need.

If you were to look at cancer as an example, between two largest cancer countries, China and the US, we would have twice as many of new cases each year compared to that in the US. Whereas if you look at the five-year survival rate, then China will fall significantly short, something like 30% to 40%, whereas the US will be 70%. One of the critical components is that we're lacking of affordable innovative medicines.

And it's not surprising if you were to look at the US market, 80% of the components are innovative medicines, whereas in China less than 15%. So there is a strong desire to develop innovative medicines and to address this significant medical needs. There's a second driver, which is really there's a serial pro-innovation policies released by Chinese government.

One of them is the regulatory reform and by far the most impactful and accelerating the approval timeline for IND and R-NDA that certainly put China into the global development map. Joining ICH ...

Ep. 113 - Frank Jiang on Hengrui’s rise and China’s new era of biopharma dealmaking

Transcript

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Ep. 113 - Frank Jiang on Hengrui’s rise and China’s new era of biopharma dealmaking

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.