Venture bets, dealmaking key features of AZ’s China strategy 

AstraZeneca’s newly announced $15 billion plan to expand manufacturing and R&D in China underscores the U.K. pharma's longstanding strategy of tapping the country’s innovation and speed in the biotech sector, a commitment that extends to early-stage investing and dealmaking.

China has been changing the pace of global innovation, with biotechs in the country quickly testing new compounds in humans, a key bottleneck for both speeding up and de-risking development of early candidates. AstraZeneca plc (LSE:AZN; NASDAQ:AZN) is among the most active MNCs in China and possesses one of the largest, if not the largest, exposures to China among MNCs at 12% of 2025 revenues. That figure has stayed consistent for the past few years...