One Chinese biotech executive is entertaining hopes of China’s domestic market for novel drugs growing to CNY300bn ($41bn). However, the country’s public payer spent just CNY90bn on such products in 2023 and is expected to increase expenditure to more than CNY100bn this year.

Poland is slowly expanding beyond its position as a central European generics hub. More established companies are adding innovative medicine pipelines and a small number of biotechs are making international deals.

After the Phase III failure of xevinapant, the German group will need to cut deals and do better in a rare cancer if it is to turn its fortunes around.

The ranks of B7-H3-targeting antibody-drug conjugates under development in China have seen their first dropout, although elsewhere there are two FGFR2b-directed ADCs with first-in-class potential on the horizon. Meanwhile, there have been other discontinuations of KRAS G12C inhibitors and anti-BCMA CAR-T cell therapies in the country, while new players have surfaced in the areas of mRNA cancer vaccines and amyloid-beta-targeting antibodies for Alzheimer’s disease.