How This New Biotech Billionaire Outmaneuvered Merck In China

Forbes

Michelle Xia gained experience at U.S. pharmaceutical firms before launching her own biotech company back home in China. In a trial last year, the firm’s cancer drug outperformed the world’s best seller–and its surging stock just made her a billionaire.  Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kerryadolan/2025/07/16/how-this-new-biotech-billionaire-outmaneuvered-merck-in-china/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Today on Forbes, how this new biotech billionaire outmaneuvered Merck in China.

00:07Michelle Xia spent a dozen years in research and biotech in the U.S. before relocating back to her

00:13native China for a job at American Life Sciences' contract research company, Crown Bioscience.

00:20It didn't take long for her to realize that patients in her home country needed to wait a

00:24much longer time than Americans to get the newest and best medicines. Back then, she says,

00:30it took 8 to 10 years for drugs that had been approved in the U.S. to become available in China.

00:36In drug development then, Xiao recalls, quote, there was not much innovation in China.

00:43China was producing copies of U.S. drugs, but with a big lag time. Armed with the ambition to change

00:49that and ample industry experience, she launched a biotech company in 2012 with two former Crown

00:55Bioscience colleagues and one other co-founder in the southern city of Jiangshan, west of Hong Kong.

01:02She took the lead as CEO, chairwoman, and president of the startup, which they named Akeso,

01:07after a Greek goddess of healing. Now, five years after taking Akeso public on the Hong Kong Stock

01:14exchange, the company's standout lung cancer drug has captured outsized attention in the

01:19pharmaceutical world. In a phase 3 trial in China last year, comparing Akeso's drug,

01:25Ivanescamab, to Merck's Keytruda, the world's best-selling drug with nearly $30 billion in 2024

01:31sales, the Akeso drug outperformed Keytruda. The fact that a drug from a little-known Chinese firm

01:38beat Merck's best-seller has led to a run-up in Akeso's shares, which nearly tripled in value,

01:44in the past year. That has turned 58-year-old Xia into a billionaire with a $1.2 billion fortune,

01:52based on her and her family's 8.5% stake in the company, Forbes estimates.

01:57She is one of just nine Chinese women billionaires in healthcare, including two who inherited their

02:03fortunes, and one of 13 self-made women billionaires in healthcare globally.

02:08More important to Xia is that her company has been an innovator. For its much-heralded cancer

02:15compound, Akeso combined two existing methods into one injectable drug, stimulating the immune

02:21system to attack the cancer cells and starving the cancer by cutting off the blood supply to the tumors.

02:26In 2022, Summit Therapeutics licensed Ivan Eskamab from Akeso for markets including the US, Canada,

02:36Europe, and Japan. Robert Booth, a board member at Summit Therapeutics and a former senior scientific

02:43executive at Roche and other firms, says, quote,

02:46Usually that strategy of combining two methods is significantly ignored. Michelle wasn't afraid

02:52to try that. She is confident in her own scientific judgment.

02:57Akeso's achievements are part of a recent wave of success for Chinese biopharma companies.

03:03Nearly one-third of drug candidates licensed by large pharmaceutical firms came from Chinese

03:08companies last year, up from zero in 2019, according to research firm Dealforma.

03:13In April, a US Congressional Commission, the National Security Commission on Emerging

03:19Biotechnology, warned in a report that the US risks losing its edge in biotech and that the

03:25government should put $15 billion in funding over five years to support biotech research and

03:30manufacturing. In May, PwC's pharmaceutical and life science deals leader, Roel Vanda Acker,

03:37wrote, quote,

03:39Over the past five years, China has transitioned from being a nice-to-watch market

03:43to a central pillar of global biopharma innovation.

03:47Some of that progress is fueled by Chinese scientists who studied or worked in the US

03:52and then moved back to China, just like Xia did.

03:56In 2015, Xia heard that pharma giant Merck was looking to license an immunotherapy drug

04:02candidate to target a protein called CTLA-4. It turned out that Akeso had one in early-stage

04:08development. Xia, who had met someone from Merck's business development team at a conference,

04:13reached out and ended up arranging a deal to license a Akeso's drug candidate to Merck

04:17for $200 million. It was the first time a Chinese company licensed a lab-developed protein,

04:24called a monoclonal antibody, to a global big pharma firm. Xia recalls, quote,

04:30quote, that was a very good validation for us. We won that deal because of our quality and our speed.

04:37For full coverage, check out Kerry A. Dolan's piece on Forbes.com.

04:43This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes. Thanks for tuning in.

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