The 15th Five-Year Plan sets the tone for emerging pillar industries; innovative drugs become an important engine of new qualitative productive forces.

Ask AI · How will the 15th Five-Year Plan specifically support innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry?

In the 2026 government work report, for the first time, biopharmaceuticals are positioned as an “emerging pillar industry.” It also clearly states that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, an industrial innovation initiative will be implemented to help it become an important engine of new quality productive forces.

In the innovation drug segment, recent performance has been relatively steadier than the overall market. Market sentiment overall has shown signs of warming compared with the earlier period. On the one hand, this may be related to the increased positioning of the pharmaceutical industry during the 15th Five-Year Plan. On the other hand, since the beginning of the year, large-scale BD transactions have been coming to fruition one after another, and overseas BD expansion has continued to surge. In addition, as the 2026 ASCO conference approaches, heavyweight data may catalyze the innovation drug segment. With multiple factors—policy direction, overseas licensing and authorization, and clinical data catalysts—converging, the innovation drug segment may be even more optimistic.

From the domestic market perspective, the 15th Five-Year Plan places biopharmaceuticals as an “emerging pillar industry,” and strengthens systematic support across multiple dimensions such as technology deployment, review and approval, and healthcare insurance support. With the release of the 15th Five-Year Plan, domestic innovation drug policies may be more optimistic than market expectations at the start of the year. In the future, there may be corresponding favorable policies, such as healthcare commercial insurance, DRG (diagnosis-related group) exclusion payment scope lists, practical policies for innovation drugs to enter hospitals, and increased fiscal support for healthcare insurance.

Looking at overseas licensing and authorization, BD and overseas clinical advancement may still be the main highlights for the 2026 innovation drug segment. After achieving a large number of BD transactions in 2025, according to data from PharmaGo (Medicine and Pharma Big Data), in the first two months of 2026, the total transaction amount for China’s innovation drug BD expansion overseas has already exceeded $50 billion, with upfront payments of more than $3 billion, approaching roughly 40% of last year’s full-year figure. Meanwhile, for major innovation drug products after going overseas, multinational pharmaceutical companies are actively advancing, which is favorable for realizing the long-term value of BD transactions. China’s innovation drug industry has strong innovation capabilities and high clinical R&D efficiency. In the fields of ADC, bispecific ADC, bispecific antibodies, and CAR-T, the pipeline share is already leading globally. In the small nucleic acid and PROTAC fields—despite starting later—the development has been rapid. China’s innovation drug BD expansion overseas has become an industry trend, and in 2026, multiple products are still expected to successfully go overseas.