Mindrank AI Ltd. completed a $52 million series B round to advance MDR-001, its AI-discovered oral small-molecule GLP-1 receptor agonist, which is in phase III trials for obesity in China.

The U.S. FDA declined to approve, for a third time, an investigational liver cancer drug regimen comprising HLB Co. Ltd.’s rivoceranib and Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd.’s camrelizumab, reportedly citing issues from a drug manufacturing facility inspection.

Astrazeneca plc has added a dual PDE3/4 inhibitor candidate to its chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) portfolio via a deal worth up to $2.1 billion with Chia Tai Tianqing Pharmaceutical Group Co. Ltd., a Sino Biopharmaceutical Ltd. subsidiary.

Drug Farm Biotechnology Co. Ltd. closed a $55 million series D round to advance its AI-developed alpha-protein kinase 1 (ALPK1) inhibitor, DF-003, in a phase III trial for ROSAH syndrome, a rare genetic disease that can lead to blindness.

The House Select Committee on China launched an investigation into clinical trials involving U.S. companies that are conducted at Chinese military hospitals and in Xinjiang, China.

Despite the Biosecure Act’s five-year wind-down period that isn’t expected to start until mid-2028, Wuxi Apptec is already feeling the repercussions of being added last month to the U.S. Department of War’s Section 1260H list.

Neuracle Medical Technology Co. Ltd. is seeking a Shanghai IPO that could make it China’s first publicly listed invasive brain-computer interface (BCI) company, months after winning approval for the country’s first invasive BCI system.

To Ivan Oransky, China’s paper-mill problem is best understood as an incentives story. “This is literally organized crime,” the Retraction Watch co-founder told BioWorld. “Follow the money. When there’s an opportunity to make money, they will find it, and if your whole career is based on how often you publish and what journals you publish in and how often you’re cited, it’s not surprising that leads to bad behavior.”

As China becomes a major source of global clinical trial evidence, the retraction of a high-profile China-led lung cancer study is raising questions about whether journals, regulators and drug developers have adequate systems to validate fast-moving clinical claims.

Astrazeneca plc has returned to China’s CSPC Pharmaceutical Group Ltd. for another discovery collaboration, this time in a deal worth up to $1.77 billion to use CSPC’s siRNA drug discovery platform and extrahepatic targeted delivery technology to develop small nucleic acid drug candidates.