Innovative drug BD data explosion! The list of overbought and high-growth performance concept stocks announced, with 17 stocks making the list

Since the beginning of this year, the business development (BD) of innovative drugs has continued to thrive.

Innovative Drug Licensing Exceeds $60 Billion

Approaching Half of Last Year’s Total

According to the latest incomplete statistics from the National Medical Products Administration, the total amount of innovative drug licensing in China has exceeded $60 billion in the first three months of this year.

“During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s innovative drugs have made a good start.” A relevant official from the National Medical Products Administration stated at the Regulatory Science and High-Quality Development Forum for Biomedicine during the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum that as of now, China’s innovative drugs have achieved historical breakthroughs and are expected to maintain a good development momentum during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

Data previously disclosed by the National Medical Products Administration showed that in 2025, China approved 76 innovative drugs for the whole year, setting a new historical high; the total amount of licensing transactions for innovative drugs that year exceeded $130 billion, also a historical high. Based on this, it is estimated that the scale of innovative drug licensing in China in the first quarter of 2026 has approached half of the total amount for the entire year of 2025.

Behind the increase in licensing volume is the international recognition of the R&D capabilities of innovative drugs, with independent innovation entering a harvest period for “going global”—the number of new drug approvals is steadily increasing. As of March 27, the National Medical Products Administration has approved 10 new drugs for marketing this year, of which 8 are original innovative drugs from China, and 1 is a Beijing original.

The Future Market Space for Innovative Drugs Will Reach 2 Trillion

By 2025, the innovative drug industry in China is expected to welcome its “DeepSeek moment.” With each new drug approval and each licensing agreement, China continuously outputs a complete and diverse range of innovative drugs to the world, and the way innovative pharmaceutical companies engage in dialogue with the world has undergone a qualitative change.

According to data from the Pharmaceutical Cube, by 2025, China is expected to achieve 157 licensing deals for innovative drugs going abroad, with a total amount rising to $135.655 billion, a year-on-year increase of over 150%. Among them, the upfront payment will reach $7 billion, setting a historical high.

Guosheng Securities pointed out that in 2026, the government work report will for the first time list biomedicine as an emerging pillar industry, which means that the policy positioning for biomedicine is evolving from “nurturing emerging tracks” to “an important pillar direction for economic growth and industrial upgrading.” As the most core and high-value-added segment of the biomedicine industry, innovative drugs will particularly benefit from this trend.

Jiaoyun International stated that against the backdrop of demand recovery and reshaping of the competitive landscape, the pharmaceutical industry will enter a new phase of “rapid expansion and survival of the fittest.” The going global of innovative drugs will drive industry expansion and structural upgrades, and the trend of consolidation among leading companies will accelerate, with AI drug development expected to reach a turning point in 2026.

According to calculations from the Pharmaceutical Cube and Dongwu Securities, by 2024, the market size of innovative drugs in China (hospital sales + non-hospital sales + BD upfront payments and milestones) is expected to approach 550 billion yuan. From 2025 to 2027, it is anticipated to explode due to BD income, and by 2030, the market size of innovative drugs in China (hospital sales + non-hospital sales + BD upfront payments and milestones + sales sharing) is expected to exceed 2 trillion yuan, with a compound annual growth rate of 24.1%.

46 High-Growth Concept Stocks Emerge

With the performance reports for 2025 gradually coming in, several innovative drug concept stocks have shown high growth in their results.

According to statistics from Securities Times·Data Treasure, based on the 2025 annual reports, performance forecasts, and lower limits of net profit (if no lower limit, the announced value is taken), there are 46 innovative drug concept stocks with a net profit growth of over 20% year-on-year (including those that turned losses into profits) in 2025. Among them, 14 innovative drug concept stocks turned losses into profits, including Rongchang Biologics, Yiling Pharmaceutical, Nuocheng Jianhua, Zhongsheng Pharmaceutical, and Huabang Health.

Taking Rongchang Biologics as an example, the company achieved a net profit of 710 million yuan in 2025, turning losses into profits year-on-year. During the reporting period, the company’s drugs that have entered the commercialization stage, such as Tai’ta Xip (RC18, trade name: Tai’ai®) and Widi Xitomab (RC48, trade name: Aidiqi®), are undergoing clinical trials for various indications in China and the United States; several indications have been approved in China or have submitted marketing applications, and other indications in clinical stages have also made significant progress; additionally, other molecules such as RC28, RC118, RC148, RC278, and RC288 are undergoing clinical research or are at the clinical application stage.

Among the non-loss-turning stocks, 8 stocks are expected to achieve net profits of over 1 billion yuan in 2025, including WuXi AppTec, HengRui Medicine, Fosun Pharma, Sanofi Guojian, and Jilin Aodong.

WuXi AppTec is expected to achieve a net profit of 19.151 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 102.65%. During the reporting period, the company successfully synthesized and delivered over 420,000 new compounds for its clients. By the end of 2025, the total number of small molecule D&M pipelines reached 3,452, including 83 commercial projects, 91 clinical phase III projects, 377 clinical phase II projects, and 2,901 preclinical and clinical phase I projects.

In terms of secondary market performance, as of the close on March 27, among the 46 high-growth innovative drug concept stocks mentioned above, 17 stocks have seen their latest closing prices decline by over 20% from their high points this year.

The stock with the largest decline is Hongbo Pharmaceutical, which reached an all-time high on January 14 and has since retraced 45.71%. The company has built a drug R&D system centered on the DiOrion platform, covering key stages such as target discovery, molecular design and optimization, and druglikeness prediction.

(Source: Data Treasure)