A member of the post-1990s generation, she earned a return of 40 billion yuan from one single successful business venture.

A landmark moment has arrived for China's pharmaceutical industry.

According to insights from PE Daily, on November 4, China Biopharmaceuticals announced an authorization cooperation deal with German pharmaceutical enterprise Boehringer Ingelheim, with the potential transaction amount reaching as high as 7 billion US dollars (about 46 billion RMB).

It is notable that among the six authorized projects in this deal, five of them come from Lixin Pharma. This Shanghai-based biotech firm was fully acquired by China Biopharmaceuticals only last July. The person who led this multi-billion-yuan M&A deal is Xie Qirun, the post-90s female chairwoman of the board of China Biopharmaceuticals.

In just one year, China Biopharmaceuticals has quickly completed the value closed loop of "M&A - incubation - authorization", which can be regarded as a textbook-style M&A case, and also provides a highly research-worthy reference sample for China's pharmaceutical industry.

Transaction Value Reaches 7 Billion US Dollars

A Benchmark Case for China's Pharmaceutical Industry Lands

This transaction is worth in-depth analysis — according to the official announcement, the cooperation between China Biopharmaceuticals and Boehringer Ingelheim involves six preclinical projects of innovative oncology drugs, with a potential transaction amount of up to 7 billion US dollars.

Specifically, China Biopharmaceuticals will receive an upfront payment and near-term payments of 358 million US dollars, and will be eligible to receive up to 7 billion US dollars in potential option exercise payments and development, regulatory and commercialization milestone payments. In addition, it can also obtain tiered royalties at a double-digit percentage of future product sales.

The six projects cover two major technical directions: antibody-drug conjugates (ADC) and T-cell engagers (TCE), all targeting next-generation oncology therapies.

According to the agreement, after the agreed clinical milestones are reached, Boehringer Ingelheim can exercise the option to obtain the exclusive development, production and commercialization rights of four of the projects in regions outside mainland China, Hong Kong and Macao, while the authorization scope of the remaining two projects covers the whole world.

The buyer has a strong background. Founded in Germany in 1885, Boehringer Ingelheim is still held by the founding family to this day, and is the largest unlisted pharmaceutical enterprise in the world.

As a matter of fact, China Biopharmaceuticals has a deep connection with this century-old German pharmaceutical enterprise. As early as April 2024, the two sides announced the achievement of strategic cooperation to jointly develop and commercialize a number of innovative oncology drugs under Boehringer Ingelheim in mainland China. In August of the following year, the first product Zong Aitini Tablets was approved for marketing in China. In May of this year, a new indication for lung cancer was approved.

From the first cooperation, product approval to the latest transaction, it took only more than two years. Such a speed is quite rare in cooperation between multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Talking about this renewed partnership, Xie Qirun, Chairwoman of the Board of China Biopharmaceuticals, said that this further verifies the company's international scientific research strength in the field of next-generation oncology. By combining Sinobiopharma's innovation platform and early development capabilities with Boehringer Ingelheim's global oncology expertise, the full potential of these projects can be unleashed to bring innovative treatment options for patients around the world.

It is worth noting that the six projects come from two subsidiaries under China Biopharmaceuticals respectively. Among them, Beijing Tide Pharmaceutical contributes one project, and the remaining five all come from Lixin Pharma — the latter is the company that China Biopharmaceuticals fully acquired just last year.

Shortly after the M&A was completed, Lixin Pharma became the protagonist of this multi-billion-dollar international order, and the progress is really amazing.

Led by the Post-90s Female Head

Super High Return

Looking back now, this M&A is destined to become a much-told story in the industry.

In fact, as early as the beginning of Lixin Pharma's establishment in 2019, the two sides had contacted and negotiated cooperation. It was not until five years later that China Biopharmaceuticals invested about 142 million yuan to participate in the C1 round of financing of Lixin Pharma, and obtained a 4.91% equity stake. At the same time, the two sides reached a cooperation on the innovative drug LM-108, and China Biopharmaceuticals obtained its exclusive rights in mainland China.

In less than a year, Xie Qirun decided to fully acquire Lixin Pharma. In July 2025, after about two months of negotiations, China Biopharmaceuticals acquired Shanghai Lixin Pharma in full at a valuation of about 1 billion US dollars, setting the highest M&A amount among local Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises.

A figure announced at that time attracted widespread attention: Lixin Pharma was expected to hold about 450 million US dollars in cash and bank deposits on the closing date. After deduction, the estimated net consideration for this equity acquisition was about 501 million US dollars.

Such a large-scale transaction is extremely rare in the pharmaceutical market. "Many companies dare not make a full acquisition because they are afraid that they cannot take over the subsequent operations." A former BD head of a multinational pharmaceutical company once confessed. The acquisition price of several billion yuan has deterred most buyers. What's more, innovative drug R&D is full of uncertainties, and the buyer must have the ability to undertake the subsequent R&D and integration risks. The years of interaction between China Biopharmaceuticals and Lixin Pharma just laid the foundation for this transaction.

At that time, Lixin Pharma had already made a name for itself with two international licensing transactions. What Xie Qirun valued was exactly the early R&D capability that supported these transactions.

At the acquisition briefing that year, she specially mentioned that Lixin Pharma already had 8 assets entering clinical research, and about 20 projects were in the preclinical stage. The accumulation of China Biopharmaceuticals in clinical development, registration, production and commercialization can just form a complement to it.

After acquiring a company, integration is ultimately unavoidable.

China Biopharmaceuticals chose to retain Lixin Pharma's original R&D system. After the acquisition, Lixin Pharma's original R&D team remained stable, and none of the core personnel left. Qin Ying served as the Chief Scientist of the group's oncology field, and continued to participate in R&D decision-making. Lixin Pharma retains a relatively independent R&D space, and at the same time can call on the clinical team composed of more than 700 experts of the group, as well as international business development and other resources.

"The core value of the founder and the scientist team was fully considered before our acquisition." Xie Qirun said, "Whether during or after the acquisition, we will maintain sufficient respect for the founding team, which is also one of the important reasons why we can continuously complete key acquisitions."

What is even more surprising is that this acquisition soon yielded results.

Last July, only half a month after the acquisition news was announced, China Biopharmaceuticals disclosed that LM-299, which Lixin Pharma cooperated with Merck, was expected to receive a 300 million US dollar technology transfer milestone payment. According to the original licensing agreement, there will be up to 2.4 billion US dollars in other milestone payments in the future. Now, Boehringer Ingelheim's new transaction with a maximum amount of 7 billion US dollars followed closely.

We can do a simple calculation: measured by the net acquisition consideration of about 500 million US dollars, in less than a year, the potential transaction scale of the latest agreement alone is equivalent to about 14 times, and it is expected to bring in 400 billion yuan of revenue. If we include the subsequent payments to be fulfilled by Merck, the commercial imagination brought by this M&A is far more than that.

Wind Vane

China's Pharmaceutical Industry Usher in Comprehensive Re-evaluation

From a broader perspective, this transaction also adds confidence to China's innovative drug sector.

Innovative drug development has always been a long and risky business. The industry often talks about the "double ten law", which reveals the difficulty of new drug R&D: a new drug often takes ten years and 1 billion US dollars of investment from R&D to marketing, but the failure rate exceeds 90%. After experiencing the financing fluctuations in the past few years, many biotechs have deeply felt the pressure of capital and time.

It is inspiring that a series of large international transactions are landing one after another. Data shows that in the first three quarters of this year, a total of 60 innovative drugs were approved in China, and the total amount of out-licensing transactions exceeded 1300 billion US dollars, reaching the level of the whole of last year.

Just like this deal, it is already the third major international licensing deal of China Biopharmaceuticals this year. Previously in March, the company licensed the global rights of rovasitinib to Sanofi, with a potential total transaction amount of up to 1.53 billion US dollars; in July, it reached a licensing cooperation with AstraZeneca with a maximum amount of 1.9 billion US dollars. Including this transaction, the total potential amount of China Biopharmaceuticals' international licensing deals within the year has exceeded 10 billion US dollars.

The dense large-scale cooperation reflects the continuous attention of global pharmaceutical giants to China's innovative drugs. The technical achievements accumulated by Chinese pharmaceutical enterprises for many years are obtaining real pricing in the international market.

Looking at the entire Chinese innovative drug industry, this is far from enough. In addition to licensing, industrial M&A opens up another path for the industry to upgrade. China Biopharmaceuticals' acquisition of Lixin Pharma is a rare sample. Investors can exit, scientists and R&D platforms are retained, and new large international orders come one after another. One M&A benefits multiple parties.

Such a transaction requires the right time, place and people. There are not many industrial buyers who can spend huge sums of money to acquire biotechs, and they have very high requirements for the judgment of R&D value and the post-acquisition integration capability. But for Chinese biotechs that are struggling to find a way out, and for venture capital institutions waiting to exit, it undoubtedly provides a more expected choice.

Everything will eventually be tested by time. More and more Chinese innovative pharmaceutical enterprises are waiting for their own returns. This confidence is hard-won.

This article is from the WeChat official account "PE Daily" (ID: pedaily2012), author: Wang Lu, published with authorization from 36Kr.