China on Sept 18 released a five-year plan for its pharmaceutical industry, outlining targets such as keeping biomedical research, development and application at the global forefront by 2030. This move signals the country's resolve to turn drug innovation into a strategic strength.

The plan, jointly issued by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and nine other authorities, calls for a major leap in the core competitiveness and international influence of China's pharmaceutical industry from 2026 to 2030. It is hoped that core technologies in key fields will see systematic breakthroughs during this period.

Specifically, first-in-class drugs developed in China should account for at least 25 percent of the global total, with the number of innovative drugs approved for market ranking among the world leaders. The plan expects the innovative drug sector to grow at an average annual rate of at least 20 percent.

China also expects the biomedical sector to take shape as an emerging pillar industry at an accelerated pace.

The combined revenue of pharmaceutical enterprises above a designated scale threshold -- an annual main business revenue of 20 million yuan (about $2.96 million) — should reach at least 3.5 trillion yuan by 2030, the plan says.

The number of companies with an annual revenue exceeding 10 billion yuan should grow to 50. At least five Chinese drugs should achieve global annual sales exceeding $1 billion, according to the plan.

The biomedical sector is one of six emerging pillar industries China has identified for strategic development, alongside integrated circuits, aerospace, low-altitude economy, new energy storage and intelligent robotics. The combined output of these sectors, which stood at nearly 6 trillion yuan in 2025, is expected to surpass 10 trillion yuan by 2030.

The plan arrives at a pivotal moment as China's pharmaceutical industry shifts rapidly from its traditional identity as a supplier of active pharmaceutical ingredients and a large consumption market toward a new phase defined by the export of innovative drugs.

In the first half of this year, 38 innovative drugs were approved in China, of which 31, or more than 80 percent, were domestically developed. As of the end of 2025, China had 4,751 innovative drugs in the pipeline, accounting for one third of the global total and placing it first in the world for drugs under development.

Moreover, China's innovative drugs have gained wider global reach. The total value of overseas licensing deals for innovative Chinese drugs has surpassed $120 billion this year, up 36 percent year-on-year.

The broader industry also showed great vitality. Value-added output of China's pharmaceutical enterprises above the 20-million-yuan revenue threshold grew 6.4 percent year on year in the first half of this year.

When interpreting the plan, the MIIT said China's aging population and growing demand for whole-lifecycle health management are placing new and higher demands on the pharmaceutical industry, underscoring the urgency of stronger top-level planning to accelerate innovation-driven development.

The plan lays out 25 priority tasks across eight areas, including strengthening original innovation capacity and accelerating the development of frontier technologies and products.

Efforts will be made to deepen AI-driven upgrades and advance digital and intelligent transformation, and international industrial cooperation will also expand to build an open and mutually beneficial new pattern, according to the plan.

The 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-30) will be pivotal five years in which China's biomedical industry makes the leap from quantitative to qualitative growth, Li Yan, a researcher with the Development Research Center of the State Council, said.

Accelerating shifts in global biomedical technology paradigms, a maturing multi-tiered domestic healthcare system and steadily improving homegrown research and development capabilities are converging to create a historic opportunity for the industry, Li said.