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On September 30, the last trading day before the National Day holiday, A-shares closed with a session of "stable index but internal divergence." Throughout the day, the Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.31%, with the index edging slightly higher, but capital never rested for a moment. The innovative drug mainline showed a strong profit-making effect, with CRO, anti-cancer drugs, innovative drugs, peptide drugs, blood products, and vaccines leading the market. Taienomab-U and CanSino both closed at the "20CM" daily limit.
Meanwhile, the real estate chain, which had surged on September 29, fell sharply in early trading on September 30, but was subsequently pulled back by policy-driven capital. Shenzhen Properties A even staged a successful "floor-to-ceiling board" move.
Pharmaceutical Stocks Lead Strongly
On September 29, the real estate sector surged 4.46%, leading all 31 Shenwan major industries. On the morning of September 30, the real estate chain saw profit-taking, with a batch of stocks hitting the limit-down directly. Real estate services, real estate development, rental and sale rights, and property management all ranked at the bottom of the decline list. But near midday, the real estate sector bottomed out and rebounded. Zhongtian Service and Lujiazui hit the limit-up, Shenzhen Properties A staged a "floor-to-ceiling board" (see Figure 1), and Vanke A also turned positive from its limit-down position.
But at the same time, the semiconductor industry chain remained sluggish all day. Money has always been in the market, just rapidly rotating along the line of "certainty." Real estate has the fiscal interest subsidy landing on October 1, and pharmaceuticals have freshly signed overseas blockbuster deals and the upcoming ESMO conference. Clearly, whichever sector has clear positive catalysts will attract capital.
On September 30, the innovative drug industry chain led A-shares, with CRO, anti-cancer drugs, innovative drugs, peptide drugs, blood products, and vaccines lining up at the top of the concept sector gainers list (see Figure 2). Taienomab-U and CanSino hit the "20CM" limit-up, while a host of companies including Weilan Biology, Joinn Laboratories, Menovo Pharmaceutical (rights protection), Kangchen Pharmaceutical, and Aosaikang hit the "10CM" limit-up.
ETF comparisons are even more convincing. Innovative Drug ETF E Fund rose 3.41%, and Biotechnology ETF ChinaAMC rose 2.49%, while the Shanghai Composite Index rose only 0.31% on the same day. It was not the broad market driving pharmaceuticals up — it was pharmaceuticals pushing the broad market forward.
Multiple Positive Catalysts
Why did the innovative drug industry chain collectively rise on September 30? Mainly due to multiple positive developments in recent days. On September 29, Akeso Biopharma's overseas partner Summit announced that AstraZeneca would make a strategic equity investment of $2 billion in it, and lead the clinical research of Akeso's globally first-in-class PD-1/VEGF bispecific antibody ivonescimab combined with AstraZeneca's CLDN18.2 ADC drug for multiple gastrointestinal tumors. Related data will be presented at the presidential forum of the 2026 ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology) annual meeting.
The significance here is that the multinational giant is not buying rights, but putting real money into an equity investment, and also bringing out its own core ADC pipeline for combination use. The market has always asked "whether Chinese innovative drugs are worth this price." AstraZeneca voted yes with $2 billion.
Also on September 29, Hengrui Pharmaceuticals announced it would license its GLP-1/GIP dual receptor agonist HRS-1596 to Novo Nordisk, with an upfront payment of $300 million and a potential total deal value of up to $2.6 billion. The licensee is one of the top global players in the GLP-1赛道 (track), which amounts to certifying the quality of this molecule.
On the same day, HUTCHMED announced that its collaborator AstraZeneca has submitted a new drug application to the U.S. FDA for savolitinib combined with osimertinib. Meanwhile, Moderna announced that three research abstracts on individualized mRNA neoantigen therapies jointly developed with Merck have been accepted for the 2026 ESMO, to be presented at the conference held in Madrid from October 23 to October 27. This news boosted market sentiment and spread across the entire industry chain of mRNA, recombinant proteins, tumor vaccines, and CRO.
Adding another layer of longer-cycle narrative, on September 18, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and nine other departments jointly issued the "15th Five-Year Plan for Pharmaceutical Industry Development," reaffirming the pharmaceutical industry's new positioning as an emerging pillar industry, highlighting innovation and globalization. Nomura Securities clearly pointed out in a research report that this benefits innovative drug companies and CRDMOs; institutions generally believe the plan takes innovative drugs as the core incremental direction of the industry, focusing on supporting global first-in-class drug R&D and industry going overseas.
Industrial catalysts, overseas blockbuster deals, technological breakthroughs, and policy direction — multiple positive factors converged in recent days.
Impressive Growth in Innovative Drug Performance
From a growth perspective, based on 2026 interim report data, the pharmaceutical and biological industry achieved total operating revenue of 1,264.431 billion yuan in the first half, up 2.18% year-on-year, and achieved net profit attributable to parent companies of 109.488 billion yuan, up 9.82% year-on-year. But in sub-sectors, innovative drugs achieved total operating revenue of 389.451 billion yuan and net profit attributable to parent companies of 45.79 billion yuan during the same period, completing year-on-year increases of 6.25% and 28.54%, respectively. Among individual stocks, many companies even achieved doubled performance growth (see attached table).
Going overseas is the core variable in all of this. According to institutional statistics, from 2022 to 2025, License-out transactions by Chinese innovative drug companies increased from 54 to 154, with total value rising from $27.976 billion to $142.3 billion; in the first half of 2026, 103 deals worth $100.113 billion were already completed. Industrial Securities said that in the first half, Chinese pharmaceutical companies' BD transaction value accounted for 58% of the global total; as previously licensed products are approved in Europe and the U.S., it is expected that more than 5 domestic innovative drugs will begin overseas commercialization by 2027, and Chinese innovative drugs are moving toward the "going overseas 4.0" era.
Ammunition is also being replenished. Bank of America Securities said that in the first half of 2026, China's primary market healthcare financing reached 814 deals, up 13.8% year-on-year, with total financing of 72.6 billion yuan, up 41.7% year-on-year, of which innovative drug financing was 41.8 billion yuan, up 79.1% year-on-year. China Merchants Securities statistics show that from January to August 2026, global pharmaceutical investment and financing reached $53.8 billion, up 72% year-on-year. Institutions judge that more money in the primary market will gradually transmit into CXO orders.
The industry believes that BD going overseas has changed from an "individual case" to an "industrial trend," and the 58% global share shows that the cost-effectiveness of Chinese innovative assets is recognized by the international market; as the "water seller," CXO is not affected by the success or failure of any single new drug R&D, and its certainty is better than that of Biotech itself; aging, domestic substitution, and payment-side optimization are slow variables on a ten-year dimension; current public fund positions are at a new low in recent years, and the chip structure is healthy.
Of course, it should be noted that BD upfront payments are one-time and not sustainable income. Haisco recognized $265 million in upfront payments in the first half, with net profit up 427% year-on-year; RemeGen recognized AbbVie's $650 million upfront payment, with revenue up 433% year-on-year, turning profitable. The numbers are beautiful, but if there is no transaction of a similar scale next year, performance will be revised down precipitously. When looking at innovative drug companies, one should look at the commercialization ramp-up of the products themselves, not one-time licensing income.