Axios C-Suite: Pfizer CEO on biotech's China warning
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Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios. Stock: Getty Images
China can make things cheaper and faster than America — and it's eating the U.S. biotech industry alive right now.
Why it matters: China, almost overnight, is dominating new drug discovery.
- This stunning stat captures the speed and size: Chinese assets make up two-thirds of industry deal value this year, up from 42% in 2025 — and just 5% five years ago.
What's happening: China's advantage in early-stage drug development stems from companies' ability to move quickly from research ideas to clinical evidence, according to Rod Wong, a biotech investor and managing partner at RTW Investments.
- That allows them to snap up American ideas and bring them to market first, forcing some U.S. companies to hide their progress from the Chinese.
- That China edge means pharma giants are shifting their cash there at hyperspeed.
Two camps of biotech CEOs talked to Axios Future of Health Care expert Caitlin Owens, foreshadowing what might happen in your space:
- The hawks fear the move toward China is starving American biotech of capital and pushing frontier labs across the Pacific with it.
- The pragmatists think the origin of a drug doesn't matter if it helps patients, and that refusing to license Chinese science hands Beijing more control, not less.
Why this matters to YOU: Sounds a lot like the AI and chips debate, and many other should-I-do-business-in-China dilemmas. So I asked Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla how other CEOs should think about this shift — and the tradeoffs of doing such sensitive work in China.
- Reckon with the China threat and opportunity and how fast it can change: "China's rapid rise as a scientific superpower is reshaping the industry," he told me. "They have deliberately reformed their regulatory system and modeled it after the FDA and are now producing strong early science at half the cost and three times the speed. They've gone from a fast follower … to becoming a leader in shaping the frontier of science."
- Know your tradeoffs. In Pfizer's case, it's faster and cheaper to work closely with China, knowing the risks. "We are in the business of discovering and developing breakthroughs that change patients' lives," Bourla said. "For us, that brings a moral obligation to find the best science and use our capabilities to bring new therapies to patients all over the world."
- Beat, don't slow, competition. "It's a mistake to give in to initial instincts for spending 80% of your energy figuring out how to slow the competitor down. CEOs need to focus on lowering cost, improving speed, and investing in innovation."
