China's conditional approval system, which is an accelerated pathway, is being increasingly used by pharma firms, but some thorny issues remain such as the impact on full approvals, the scheme’s relation to priority reviews and currently available therapies and deadlines for confirmatory studies. Staff from the country's Center for Drug Evaluation discussed various topics around the system in a recent article.

During Q4, biopharmas brought in an aggregate $17.5bn in financing and device company fundraising totaled $1.9bn; while in vitro diagnostic firms and research tools players raised $848m.

The 2022 pricing negotiations for innovative drugs organized by China’s National Healthcare Security Administration have slashed prices of included products by 60% on average, a level mostly unchanged from the 2021 round, although 36% more novel medicines were covered.

Evopoint and Kaken also ring in the new year with multiple deals. Biocytogen licenses antibodies against a specified target derived from its RenMice platform technology to Hansoh Pharma.