Innovative drug BD, data explosion! The concept stocks with oversold conditions + high performance growth are revealed, with 17 stocks making the list.

This year, the business development (BD) of innovative drugs continues 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, in the first three months of this year, the total amount of innovative drug licensing in China has exceeded $60 billion.

“During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, China’s innovative drugs have made a good start,” a relevant person from the National Medical Products Administration stated at the Regulatory Science and High-Quality Development Forum of Biomedicine during the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum on the 27th. As of now, China’s innovative drugs have achieved historical breakthroughs and are expected to maintain good momentum during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.

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

Behind the increase in licensing volume is the international recognition of innovative drug R&D capabilities, as independent innovation enters a period of “going abroad” with harvesting results—the number of new drug approvals is steadily increasing. As of March 27, the National Medical Products Administration has approved 10 new drugs for market this year, including 8 original Chinese drugs and 1 originating from Beijing.

Future market space for innovative drugs will reach 2 trillion yuan

In 2025, China’s innovative drug industry is believed to have ushered in its “DeepSeek moment.” With each new drug approval and each licensing agreement, China continues to export a complete range of innovative drugs with diverse options to the world, fundamentally changing the way innovative pharmaceutical companies engage with the global market.

According to data from PharmaCube, in 2025, China is expected to achieve 157 outbound licensing transactions for innovative drugs, with a total amount rising to $135.655 billion, a year-on-year increase of over 150%. Among these, the upfront payment reached $7 billion, setting a historical high.

Guosheng Securities pointed out that in 2026, the government work report will include biomedicine as an emerging pillar industry for the first time. For the pharmaceutical sector, this means that the policy positioning for biomedicine is upgrading from “nurturing emerging tracks” to “an important pillar direction for economic growth and industrial upgrading,” with innovative drugs being the most core and high-value-added segment in the biomedicine industry, benefiting particularly clearly.

CITIC International stated that amid recovering demand and a reshaped competitive landscape, the pharmaceutical industry will enter a new stage of “scale surge and survival of the fittest,” with the outbound expansion of innovative drugs promoting industry growth and structural upgrading, and the trend of consolidation among leading enterprises accelerating. AI drug development is expected to reach a turning point in 2026.

According to calculations from PharmaCube and Dongwu Securities, in 2024, the market size of China’s innovative drugs (hospital sales + non-hospital sales + BD upfront payments and milestones) will be nearly 550 billion yuan. From 2025 to 2027, relying on BD income will lead to an explosion, with the expectation that by 2030, the market size of China’s innovative drugs (hospital sales + non-hospital sales + BD upfront payments and milestones + sales sharing) will exceed 2 trillion yuan, with a compound growth rate of 24.1%.

46 high-growth concept stocks emerge

As 2025 performance results are gradually released, several innovative drug concept stocks have delivered high growth performance.

According to statistics from the Securities Times and Data Treasure, based on the 2025 annual reports, performance forecasts, and lower limits of net profit forecasts (if no lower limit is provided, 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 turning a profit). 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 a profit from a loss. During the reporting period, the drugs entering the commercialization stage, Tai Taisip (RC18, brand name: Tai Ai®) and Vedolizumab (RC48, brand name: Ai Di Xi®), are undergoing clinical trials in China and the United States for multiple indications; several indications have been approved in China or submitted for market approval, and other indications in the clinical stage have also achieved several positive developments; in addition, other molecules such as RC28, RC118, RC148, RC278, and RC288 are under clinical research or in the clinical application stage.

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

WuXi AppTec achieved 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. As of the end of 2025, the total number of small molecule D&M pipelines reached 3,452, including 83 commercial projects, 91 Phase III clinical projects, 377 Phase II clinical projects, and 2,901 preclinical and Phase I clinical projects.

From the perspective of secondary market performance, as of the close on March 27, among the 46 innovative drug concept stocks with high growth performance, 17 have seen their latest closing prices decline by over 20% from their highs for the year.

The stock with the largest drawdown is Hongbo Pharmaceutical, which reached a historical high point during intraday trading 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 drugability prediction.