On December 3, 2025, Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals Company announced the nomination and appointment of Guoxin Zhu as Senior Vice President. Prior to joining Hengrui, Zhu served as Vice President of Molecule Discovery at Eli Lilly, with more than 30 years of leadership experience spanning the full drug discovery continuum from target hypothesis to early clinical development. His expertise covers multiple therapeutic areas including diabetes and obesity, immunology, neuroscience, pain, and oncology. Industry observers regard Zhu as one of the highest-ranking and most well-regarded Chinese executives within multinational pharmaceutical companies, and his appointment is widely seen as a strategic reinforcement of Hengrui’s international ambitions.
Zhu’s appointment is part of a broader wave of senior hires with strong multinational backgrounds. In April 2025, Ji Feng—formerly a long-time executive at AstraZeneca—was appointed President and CEO. In October, Hengrui further strengthened its leadership bench with several vice-president-level appointments, including Xin-hui Hu as Chief Technology Officer, Zhigang Sun as Chief Quality Officer, and Hang Yin as Head of Oncology, all of whom bring extensive experience from multinational pharma companies or global regulatory bodies. In parallel, Hengrui-controlled digital healthcare subsidiary Yiduoyun appointed former AstraZeneca China Vice President Lili Zhu as General Manager. Collectively, these moves signal a structural shift for a company historically known for internally grown management, as it systematically builds capabilities required for global R&D, quality, commercialization, and digital operations.
The strengthening of management capabilities has gone hand in hand with Hengrui’s accelerating global business development activities. Since 2020, the company has completed 15 outbound BD transactions with an aggregate potential value exceeding USD 27 billion, partnering with major multinational pharmaceutical companies such as GSK, Merck, and MSD, as well as overseas biotech firms. In October 2025, Hengrui-backed NewCo Kailera Therapeutics completed a USD 600 million financing round—one of the largest global private biotech deals of the year—anchored by a portfolio of GLP-1 assets originally developed by Hengrui. These transactions have not only generated upfront cash and equity returns, but have also validated the global competitiveness of Hengrui’s innovation pipeline.
Despite this progress, Hengrui’s international business remains at an early stage. In 2024, overseas revenue totaled RMB 716 million, accounting for just 2.86% of total revenue. Chairman Sun Piaoyang has stated that internationalization will only be considered truly established when overseas revenue reaches 10–15% or higher. Against this backdrop, Hengrui continues to pursue a dual-track strategy: leveraging licensing, NewCo structures, and partnerships to “borrow ships to go global,” while simultaneously strengthening internal capabilities—through talent, experience, and execution—to eventually “build its own ships” for independent global expansion.
Hengrui’s frequent use of partnership-based internationalization reflects a pragmatic assessment of both industry dynamics and its own strengths. At the core of this strategy lies the company’s broad and steadily advancing R&D pipeline, which provides the confidence to engage global partners in flexible, value-accretive collaborations. In management’s view, business development is inherently opportunity-driven: timing is critical, and missing a market window may eliminate the chance for a transaction altogether. As a result, Hengrui prioritizes speed, openness, and strategic fit over rigid adherence to any single “go-global” model.
Partner selection is guided by a clear emphasis on achieving mutually beneficial outcomes. The 2023 licensing deal with U.S.-based Treeline Biosciences for an EZH2 inhibitor exemplifies this approach. EZH2, an epigenetic target, has already been approved in China for peripheral T-cell lymphoma, a relatively niche indication domestically but one with meaningful unmet clinical need. From an early stage, Hengrui positioned the asset with global markets in mind, particularly given the longer treatment duration and larger commercial potential overseas. Treeline’s founding team—comprising former senior leaders from Loxo Oncology and Novartis—brought strong clinical development expertise, enabling Hengrui to monetize the asset through upfront payments, downstream milestones, and royalties, while retaining long-term upside through later-stage commercialization.
A similar logic underpinned Hengrui’s NewCo collaboration with Kailera Therapeutics around its GLP-1 portfolio. Beyond the scientific assets themselves, Hengrui placed significant weight on Kailera’s execution and financing capabilities, supported by a blue-chip investor base led by Bain Capital. Kailera’s successful USD 600 million Series B financing in a challenging U.S. biotech market validated this assessment. Through equity ownership and post-launch commercial participation, Hengrui secured exposure to the global value creation of the assets while leveraging an external platform optimized for international development, financing, and potential exit scenarios such as IPO or M&A.
Importantly, management emphasizes that “borrowing ships to go global” does not preclude building its own. As revenues and cash flow from innovative drugs continue to grow—supported by expanded financing channels including a Hong Kong listing—Hengrui has increased overseas investment and steadily built international teams. For larger, high-potential assets, the company is also open to co-development models with multinational pharmaceutical companies, sharing global R&D and commercialization responsibilities while accelerating learning and capability building. Overall, Hengrui’s internationalization strategy remains deliberately flexible: rather than applying a one-size-fits-all model, the company tailors its global approach to each asset, with the ultimate objective of maximizing long-term value and sustainable global competitiveness.
Source: china securities journal, caixin, sina finance, uninf finance, ifeng finance
