What is behind China’s rapid rise as a pharmaceutical powerhouse?

ADCs are a newer class of cancer drugs designed to target tumours more precisely.

They have three main parts:

A monoclonal antibody that targets a specific protein on the surface of cancer cells.

Chemotherapy drug payloads.

Linker molecules that connect the two.

The linker is engineered to break apart once the ADC enters a cancer cell, releasing its toxic payload. This helps limit damage to healthy cells.

Zhu believes the US still leads China in identifying the right biological targets, but argues that China is especially strong in the technical and chemical aspects of developing these drugs.

"(It's about) what kind of linker you choose, what kind of payload you design. You need medicinal chemists to design it, and then you have to engineer it," he said.

"On this side, China's capability is actually very strong – and getti ng stronger. China has excellent medicinal chemists and excellent engineers, and we can also scale up well."

He added that Chinese teams are "comparatively really hardworking" when it comes to technology, and argued that the country no longer trails behind the US in chemistry and engineering.

"Not only do we not have a gap – we've started to overtake," said Zhu.

Research data reflects part of this shift.

The Nature Index, which tracks global research output, shows that the US had twice China's share in biological sciences in 2024. But in chemistry, China's share was three times that of the US.