Chinese biopharmaceutical firm Akeso has announced that its immunotherapy drug had outperformed AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi in a head-to-head phase three trial for biliary tract cancer, reports the South China Morning Post.

The result represents another breakthrough for Akeso’s ivonescimab–which has already been licensed by the US firm Summit Therapeutics in a multibillion-dollar deal–as China’s biopharmaceutical industry increasingly looks to compete on the global stage.

The Chinese trial tested ivonescimab and chemotherapy against AstraZeneca’s Imfinzi (durvalumab) plus chemotherapy on a total of 682 patients with advanced biliary tract cancer–a particularly deadly form of cancer with a five-year survival rate of less than 5%, according to a Nature study. The results showed that patients taking Akeso’s novel drug lived longer than those using the AstraZeneca treatment, the company said in a Hong Kong stock exchange filing released a day ahead of its interim results.

WuXi AppTec, Asia’s largest provider of contract pharmaceutical research, posted net income that beat market expectations in the first half of the year, reports the South China Morning Post. This comes amid strong demand tied to weight-loss and diabetes drugs, as well as gains in its US business.

Interim net profit attributable to the owners of the Shanghai-based drug contractor advanced 33.7% to RMB 11.08 billion ($1.64 billion) from a year earlier.

The company’s new order intake grew by more than 40%, year on year, in the first half, its chief financial officer, Florence Shi, said during an earnings call on Tuesday.

Soaring demand for preclinical testing in China’s biotech industry has created a windfall for the laboratories that breed monkeys used in drug trials, reports the South China Morning Post.

Beijing-based Joinn Laboratories, a contract research organisation (CRO) dual listed in Shanghai and Hong Kong, said on Wednesday that its first-half net profit attributable to shareholders would surge 1377.4% from a year earlier, without giving the profit estimate figure. The biotech CRO cited higher pricing for its laboratory animals as the core growth driver, with analysts singling out lab monkeys.

“Costs of lab primates–most notably crab-eating macaques–started trending upwards from the middle of last year,” Yu Ruyi, an analyst at Kaiyuan Securities pointed out in a March research report. Survey data compiled by the analyst showed that each crab-eating macaque fetched RMB 90,000 ($13,301) in the middle of last year.

China removed a three-decade-old tax exemption on contraceptive drugs and condoms from January 1 in new steps to boost low birth rates, reports Reuters. Condoms and contraceptive pills now incur value-added tax of 13%, the standard rate for most consumer goods.

The move comes as Beijing struggles to boost birth rates. China’s population fell for a third consecutive year in 2024 and experts have cautioned the downturn will continue. 

China’s birth rates have been falling for decades as a result of the one-child policy China implemented from 1980 to 2015, and rapid urbanisation. 

Beijing has announced it will restore a 30-year-old tax on contraceptive drugs and condoms in a bid to cut sales of contraceptives and thereby boost birthrates. The announcement follows a recent move to waive all hospital fees for child delivery.

China is struggling with a low birth rate, and despite Beijing’s best efforts to reverse the decades-long One Child Policy in 2016, many couples are choosing to not have children. Rising living costs, lack of confidence in the future and a weak employment market are all contributing to a general unwillingness to marry or have kids.

This is important for several reasons. One is that domestic consumption is a problem and the low birth rate directly impacts all products that relate to babies and kids. Babies are also future consumers, and an economy that is healthy has a healthy pipeline of consumers. Robots don’t consume.