On June 7th, AstraZeneca CEO Soliot spoke the truth.

“If Europe doesn't offer us better drug prices, new drugs may not be available here。”

What he said in the Financial Times was even more harsh: "It's regrettable and heartbreaking, but we have no choice." Translated into English: "Your medical insurance is desperately lowering prices, why am I always accommodating?

Although this company is an Anglo Swiss joint venture, over 45% of its revenue relies on the United States. The UK, France, and Spain each account for about 2%. The drug prices in Europe are getting lower and lower, so of course it will take responsibility. I will run wherever I give more money.

This news hasn't exploded much in China. But for Chinese pharmaceutical innovation clients, this signal is quite clear: the profit map of global innovative drugs is accelerating to be redrawn. How to draw specifically? How to layout? Skip the main text, you can directly pull it to the end of the article to view!

Interestingly, at the beginning of the year, AstraZeneca's attitude towards China was completely different.

01.Smashing 100 billion yuan in anger, AstraZeneca sees China as its' second home '

At the end of January, British Prime Minister Stammer visited China after an 8-year hiatus, and AstraZeneca's global CEO, Subaru, also came with him.

A big news was announced on the spot: by 2030, more than 100 billion yuan will be invested in China, and the number of employees will increase from 16000 to over 20000.

100 billion, not a small amount. Frontier directions such as cell therapy and radiolabeled drugs. Suboko himself spoke very clearly: "China has become an important force in scientific innovation, advanced manufacturing, and global public health." He even bluntly stated that China is a "key link in the global innovation system.

Threatening Europe to cut off drugs while spending billions in China. Behind this' double-sided script 'is the simplest accounting logic of pharmaceutical companies - wherever there is money to make and where there is ecology, I will run wherever it is.

If you think this is just a choice for AstraZeneca, then you are narrow-minded. What it is really doing is helping the entire Chinese biopharmaceutical industry "change its identity".

Bloomberg published an article in early June stating that multinational pharmaceutical companies are crazily "shopping" in China because they are attracted to the innovation and research and development capabilities of the Chinese pharmaceutical industry. The article mentions a data point: in 2021, Chinese companies accounted for less than 10% of the global drug authorization transactions worth over 1 billion US dollars; By the end of March this year, this number had skyrocketed to 55%.

A senior investment banking executive at JPMorgan summarized it quite well: multinational pharmaceutical companies now not only focus on single products, but also on "platform based cooperation", emphasizing the original ability of Chinese companies' underlying technology platforms. The significant increase in transaction value objectively reflects the improvement of asset quality

More and more global pharmaceutical companies are signing authorized partnerships with Chinese biotech companies, which fully demonstrates that Chinese pharmaceutical research and development has become highly innovative, "said Sushil Batija, a senior executive at Goldman Sachs Asia

Previously, foreign pharmaceutical companies mostly cooperated with China by selling their mature products. The landscape has completely changed now - multinational giants are interested in the original capabilities of the underlying technology platforms of Chinese domestic enterprises.

The most illustrative case is Shiyao Group. In January of this year, the two sides signed a strategic cooperation agreement for long-acting peptide drugs, with a potential total amount of up to 18.5 billion US dollars. At the end of May, Shiyao received a down payment of 1.2 billion US dollars directly. This money is not installment or option, it has actually been put into the pocket. Do you believe it?

Not just stone medicine. In early June, Dr. Jing He, Senior Vice President of AstraZeneca, publicly stated, "AI is no longer an auxiliary tool, and AstraZeneca wants to create a culture of 'AI First'

Why choose Tsinghua University? Because Tsinghua Intelligent Industry Research Institute does have a solid foundation in the deep integration of AI and life sciences, their DrugCLIP model can increase the speed of virtual drug screening by one million times, which is simply outrageous.

In January 2026, AstraZeneca also directly acquired Boston AI pharmaceutical company Modella AI, integrating their generative AI platform into their own tumor research and development system - this is a hard tech upgrade.

So, AstraZeneca is investing money in China not to buy "cheap goods", but to compete for "smart people".

02. Chinese enterprises are transforming from "running the dragon trap" to "partners"

The most thought-provoking aspect of AstraZeneca's story is the changing role of Chinese companies.

In the past, foreign pharmaceutical companies cooperated with China, and most Chinese companies were contract manufacturers or sales channels.

Now then? AstraZeneca has relocated its global research and development center, AI joint laboratory, and cell therapy production base to China. Chinese companies have also transformed from "authorized parties" to "partners" or even "authorized parties" - Shiyao has authorized its technology platform to AstraZeneca, and the down payment received is calculated in billions of dollars.

Who dared to think about this before?

The trend of "platform based cooperation" is becoming increasingly evident. Morgan Stanley analysts put it bluntly: multinational pharmaceutical companies value the high-quality assets and unique clinical ecosystems of Chinese companies. He Jing directly pointed out, "China has become an important force in global scientific innovation, advanced manufacturing, and global public health

The last sentence of the Bloomberg article is quite interesting: "Both Chinese and foreign patients can obtain innovative and more cost-effective drugs faster as a result." Translation: The original ability of Chinese companies is changing the global supply pattern of drugs.

You don't need to become a technology source company like NVIDIA. If they can make their technology platform irreplaceable, global giants will take the initiative to knock on the door.

Let's go to Cambridge together in August

The story of AstraZeneca is not a solo show of a pharmaceutical company.

It talks about the new possibility of globalization for Chinese enterprises - the combination of technological breakthroughs and clear judgments on industry trends, giving you a complete opportunity to transform from a "runner" to a "partner".

This is also what Huazhi International has been doing: taking entrepreneurs out and establishing this awareness on site. From August 2nd to 9th, we will have an "In Depth Training Tour for Innovation and Business Leaders in the UK", covering four cities including Cambridge, Oxford, Birmingham, and London for 8 days.

The first stop on the itinerary is the AstraZeneca Global R&D Center. We will go in and meet their management team face-to-face to dissect "AI driven life science innovation and global healthcare industry upgrading". Besides this one, we will also go to Land Rover, Burberry, and the London Stock Exchange.

Instead of studying how others succeed in the office, it's better to go and see for yourself.

See you in Cambridge on August 2nd. Seats are limited, first come, first served.