China's Center for Drug Evaluation has issued fresh warnings that it will tighten reviews of anti-tumor drugs on the grounds that “redundant” development activities waste clinical resources.

Innovent is paying the Danish biotech $20m upfront for the China rights to the mid-stage PDE4 inhibitor that is being developed for psoriasis, atopic dermatitis and hidradenitis suppurativa. 

Plus deals involving Biosplice/Haisco, SciClone/Tarveda, Everest/Sinovent/SinoMab, Kyowa Kirin/AM-Pharma, Sandoz/Bio-Thera, Dr. Reddy’s/Citius, Jiangsu Hengrui/Mabworks, GeneQuantum/BrightGene, Innovent/GenFleet and Takeda/Mirum.

Inclusion into China's national reimbursement drug list alone does not guarantee revenue growth but in some cases higher volumes seem to be offsetting the requisite big price cuts, reveal second-quarter results from some leading publicly-traded biotechs in the country.