South Korea’s National Assembly approved the largest budgets for its health ministries in 2026, including the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.

China’s National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) has issued guidance governing online sales of medical devices with a focus on inspections of the products’ manufacturing facilities. The agency made it clear that the manufacturer will have to deal promptly with any deviations from the regulations or face enforcement action, signaling a new era of tighter scrutiny of online sales of these products.

After raising $292 million in its Hong Kong IPO, AI discovery and development biotech, Insilico Medicine, signed an R&D collaboration with French pharma Servier SA valued at $888 million to discover and develop innovative oncology therapies by combining Insilico's AI-driven drug discovery platforms with Servier's global expertise in cancer drug development.

Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration posted a proposed rework of the agency’s conformity assessment procedures that would align with EU regulations, but the agency stated clearly that it is aware of some of the hazards of further alignment with the troubled European regulations.

Abbvie Inc. signed a $1.1 billion New Year’s Eve deal with China’s Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals Co. Ltd., gaining ex-China rights to Zelgen’s lead oncology asset, alveltamig (ZG-006), a trispecific T-cell engager targeting delta-like ligand 3. Under terms of the deal, Abbvie will pay Zelgen an up-front fee of $100 million, and Zelgen is eligible to receive $60 million in near-term milestones and could receive up to $1.075 billion in additional development, regulatory and commercial milestones, alongside tiered royalties on net sales outside China. Zelgen retains full rights in China.

Surgical robotics maker Shenzhen Edge Medical Co. Ltd. reported its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to raise HKD$1.19 billion (US$154 million) to advance its pipeline of surgical robotic systems and expand its geographic footprint to markets outside China.

IPOs top the list of the big stories in 2025 in med tech. Thirty med-tech companies went public, raising nearly $12 billion, two orders of magnitude more than in 2023 and almost 20 times more than raised in 2024.

Advanced Biomed Inc. reported Dec. 30 the sale of its wholly owned Hong Kong subsidiary, Advanced Biomed (HK) Ltd., and related intellectual property to buyer Wei Ha Hui for $23,000.

Bayosthiti AI Pvt Ltd. aims to make RNA sequencing and AI-based preventive health care affordable and accessible for the Indian market, leveraging intellectual property from its parent company, Biostate AI Inc.