On the evening of March 21, the list of major foreign representatives for the 2026 annual meeting of the China Development Forum was announced. Executives from 12 multinational medical companies were on the list, including Roche Group Chairman Severin Schwan, Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla, AstraZeneca Global CEO Pascal Soriot, Novartis CEO Vasant Narasimhan, and Eli Lilly Chairman and CEO David A. Ricks), Abbott Chairman and CEO Robert Ford, Thermo Fisher Scientific Chairman and CEO Marc Casper, Medtronic Chairman and CEO Geoff Martha, Siemens Healthineers Global CEO Bernd Montag, Boehringer Ingelheim Chairman of the Shareholder Committee Hubertus von Baumbach, Ogalon Acting CEO Joseph Morris Morrissey), and Intuitive Healthcare CEO Dave J. Rosa.
Schwan, chairman of the board of directors of the Swiss Roche Group, and other heads of multinational pharmaceutical companies and associations said that China has made great achievements in the field of health and health, providing a broad space for development for multinational companies. In the future, it will further expand investment and business layout, and deepen cooperation in new drug research and development, clinical trials, digital health and other fields.
In recent years, multinational pharmaceutical companies have deepened the construction of localized supply chains in China. Just this week, AstraZeneca announced two major investments in Shanghai and Guangzhou respectively, including the construction of a cell therapy production and supply base in Shanghai and the construction of a radioconjugated drug production and supply base in Guangzhou. AstraZeneca said the synergy between the two sites will further enhance AstraZeneca's localized production capabilities in the field of new drugs and therapies and become a key pillar in its continued expansion of its diversified global supply network.
Last week, Eli Lilly also announced a plan to invest a total of US$3 billion in China over the next ten years. This move will comprehensively expand the company's supply chain production capacity in China, create a local production and supply system for oral solid dosage forms, and prepare in advance the production capacity of oral small molecule GLP-1 receptor agonists to be launched on the market in the future.
China's continued booming demand for weight loss drugs is also the next important market for multinational medical companies to compete for. On March 21, Eli Lilly China released a study on the economic burden of overweight and obesity, which showed that the annual economic burden caused by overweight and obesity in my country has reached 1 trillion yuan. Lilly CEO Dai Wenrui said that improving the accessibility of effective treatments and accelerating the improvement of the obesity management system are expected to reduce the long-term chronic disease management pressure faced by society from the source.
This month, Pfizer's GLP-1 receptor agonist Enoglutide Injection, authorized by Chinese biopharmaceutical company Xianweida, was also officially approved for marketing by the National Medical Products Administration in China. This move means that Pfizer will officially enter the Chinese weight loss drug market.
On the other hand, as many of the blockbuster drugs of multinational pharmaceutical companies will have their patents expire in recent years, these companies also hope to enrich their R&D pipelines by acquiring innovative drugs from China. "China's early-stage R&D is now globally competitive," UBS pharmaceutical analysts wrote in a report.
Pfizer CEO Ai Boluo has repeatedly called on the U.S. pharmaceutical industry to cooperate with the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. He said that China has occupied about 30% of the global drug development market share in the past decade due to its rapid research and development process. "In the field of biopharmaceuticals, China's amazing speed, cost advantage and scale effect have changed the global competitive landscape." Ai BoLe said. He also said that Chinese biopharmaceutical companies recruit patients for clinical trials two to five times faster than American companies.
