Ten years ago, few people outside the field would have named China as a centre of medical discovery. Today it is one of the most important forces in the world for medical research. Chinese teams are publishing more high quality cancer research than any other country, its regulator is approving new cancer medicines faster than the United States, and Chinese scientists have delivered first of their kind treatments that Western programmes are still working towards.
This article looks at where China's progress has been most striking, from cancer and cell therapy to stroke care and the elimination of malaria, and at what still lies ahead.
China now leads the world in cancer research output
In 2024 China overtook the United States for the first time on the Nature Index Share measure of high quality cancer research papers, with a score of roughly 2,615 against 2,482. The pace of growth is what stands out: China's output rose by about 19 percent in a single year, compared with about 5 percent for the United States. Across the full 2019 to 2024 period the United States still leads, and Harvard remains the top individual institution, but the direction of travel is clear.
China has also become the engine room of cancer clinical trials. One analysis found that Chinese sponsors accounted for around 39 percent of global cancer trials in 2024. Large patient populations, lower costs and investigator led trial pathways allow Chinese hospitals to test new treatments in people faster than most Western systems.
More new cancer drugs approved than in the United States
A Health Affairs analysis found that China's National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) approved 94 novel cancer drugs between 2020 and 2025, compared with 87 approved by the US Food and Drug Administration. In 2025 alone China cleared nearly three times as many. Many of these are improved or locally optimised versions of existing drug types rather than entirely new classes, an area where the United States still leads, but the volume reflects how quickly Chinese medicines now move from the laboratory to patients.
A world first: CAR-T approved for a solid tumour
CAR-T therapy, which reprograms a patient's own immune cells to attack cancer, has transformed blood cancers but has struggled against solid tumours. China has broken through. In 2026 the NMPA approved satri-cel (satricabtagene autoleucel) from CARsgen, a CAR-T therapy that targets the CLDN18.2 protein, for patients with advanced gastric or gastroesophageal junction cancer that had already been treated.
In phase 2 results published in The Lancet, satri-cel extended median progression free survival to 3.25 months against 1.77 months with the doctor's choice of treatment, a hazard ratio of 0.37, and median overall survival to about 7.9 months against 5.5 months. It is widely described as the first CAR-T therapy approved anywhere for a solid tumour. Chinese groups also lead many of the next generation and in vivo CAR-T programmes now in clinical testing.
Viruses engineered to fight liver cancer
Liver cancer is a major health burden in China, driven largely by chronic hepatitis B. VG161, an engineered herpes simplex virus designed to infect and destroy tumour cells while switching on the immune system, showed promising results in a phase 1 trial published in Nature in 2025. In heavily pretreated patients with hepatocellular carcinoma, response rates reached the high teens and around 60 percent of patients saw their disease controlled. Patients who had previously responded to checkpoint inhibitors showed especially encouraging survival signals, and side effects were mostly manageable.
New options for lung cancer and brain metastases
Ivonescimab, a Chinese bispecific antibody that blocks both PD-1 and VEGF, delivered a median progression free survival of 11.14 months against 6.9 months for tislelizumab plus chemotherapy in the HARMONi-6 phase 3 trial in advanced squamous non small cell lung cancer. The results, published in The Lancet and presented at ESMO 2025, also showed a favourable bleeding profile.
From Nankai University, ACT001, a drug that crosses the blood brain barrier and targets cancer stem cells, produced around 53 percent longer median survival, to 9.5 months, when added to radiotherapy for small cell lung cancer that had spread to the brain. It has now entered phase 3 trials in China. Alongside these, Chinese PD-1 inhibitors, antibody drug conjugates, TIL therapies and personalised mRNA vaccines are showing competitive results in the lung and gastric cancers that are common across Asia.
Stroke care backed by major Chinese trials
Chinese multicentre trials are reshaping how stroke is treated. The MILD-MT trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2026, found that clot retrieval within 24 hours gave 69.4 percent of patients with mild large vessel stroke an excellent recovery, against 50 percent with medical treatment alone. Other Chinese studies have tested later treatment windows, dual antiplatelet strategies, and drugs such as oral edaravone and tirofiban to protect the brain. Stroke incidence and death rates in China have fallen as a result of this kind of work.
Public health successes the world has learned from
China's achievements in public health are among its most celebrated. The World Health Organization certified China malaria free after decades of work built in part on artemisinin, discovered through traditional Chinese medicine research by Nobel laureate Tu Youyou. China also eliminated smallpox ahead of the global timeline and controlled polio and filariasis.
Hepatitis B remains a major challenge, and China is at the forefront of efforts towards a functional cure. In trials of bepirovirsen, Chinese patients achieved functional cure rates of around 24 percent in one subgroup, higher than the roughly 19 percent seen globally, and domestic companies are developing new nucleic acid treatments. Chinese made antivirals for hepatitis C match the effectiveness of imported drugs, and free antiretroviral programmes have steadily reduced deaths from HIV.
Early breakthroughs in diabetes and organ transplantation
Chinese teams have reported patients with long standing type 1 and type 2 diabetes becoming free of insulin after transplants of islet cells grown from stem cells, published in Cell and Cell Discovery. One patient with type 2 diabetes remained off insulin for more than 33 months. These are individual cases, and larger trials are needed, but they point towards a future where diabetes could be treated at its root.
Chinese surgeons have also used gene edited pig organs as a temporary bridge for patients, including a pig liver graft that supported one patient for 38 days. Like similar work in the United States, this remains experimental, but it marks China as a leader in one of medicine's most ambitious frontiers.
Preparing for the challenge of dementia
China is home to nearly 30 percent of the world's dementia cases, and its research effort has grown rapidly to match. Chinese laboratories are developing blood tests and other biomarkers, testing new gene based and plaque clearing approaches in animal studies, and building the trial capacity needed to test them in people. As everywhere in the world, a treatment that stops or reverses Alzheimer's disease has not yet been found.
What it adds up to
China's strengths are scale, speed and sustained public investment. Together they have produced real results: the first CAR-T therapy for a solid tumour, promising oncolytic viruses, leading bispecific antibodies, landmark stroke trials and the elimination of malaria. The United States and Europe still lead in first in class medicines and long term basic research, and the world's hardest diseases, from advanced cancer to Alzheimer's, remain unsolved everywhere.
What has changed is that China is no longer catching up. In cancer research, clinical trials and drug approvals it is now setting the pace. Long term follow up and independent replication will show how lasting these gains prove to be, and OrientSciences will keep reporting on Chinese research as it develops.
All content on this page is for research and educational purposes only and is not medical advice.