The gene therapy firm announced that Bristol terminated a collaboration started in 2015. Nona follows its recent alliance with Moderna with a second collaboration, this time with Dragonfly.

Much of the biopharma and other health-related industries in China were already feeling the chill from ongoing macro-economic and other headwinds this year, which now look set to be complicated further by the added strain of social unrest over strict COVID containment policies. The combination of factors is already prompting some to take steps towards restructuring and divestments to survive.

China's biopharma firms including Hengrui Medicine and HUTCHMED actively pursue licensing partners for their drug assets as the economic downturn caused by domestic COVID flare-ups continues worsening. Meanwhile, there are some predictions that smaller biotechs in the country may need to tap into multinationals' deep pockets to raise new funds.

After inking major deals with AbbVie and AstraZeneca, China-US company Harbour BioMed recently shifted strategy, divesting its site in Suzhou to WuXi in a bid to be “more focused, efficient and nimble” and emerge stronger post-pandemic, says founder, chairman and CEO Jingsong Wang in an exclusive interview.