UPMC Enterprises’ Biopharma Lead: We are At a Tipping Point When it Comes to China

Since 2020, UPMC Enterprises, the innovation, commercialization and venture arm of the $28 billion healthcare provider and insurer based in Pittsburgh, has begun directly investing in life sciences companies. That was a change from before, when the focus was on commercializing UPMC’s (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) internal research and intellectual property, explained Matthias Kleinz, executive vice president and head of translational sciences investments at UPMC Enterprises, in a recent interview.

Since then, it has invested in several outside companies in the U.S. and the U.K., he said. But now, the organization is looking at ways to leverage innovation well beyond these regions.

“At the moment are starting to look at what’s happening in China and how can we potentially look for technologies there,” he said.

Historically, American businesses of all persuasions have largely looked at China as a gigantic market to sell their products to, be it movies or medical technology, and everything in between. The attraction was a thriving and growing middle class with income to spare. Or the country has been viewed as a source for raw materials and a plethora of plastic goods, be it drug reagents or injection molds.

But now the dynamic has shifted and notably so. The Asian powerhouse is evolving into a place where valid innovation in healthcare is occurring. It seems ironic that American healthcare organizations have suddenly discovered China’s potential for innovation just as our relationship with the country teeters on the edge, especially under the current administration. But Kleinz pushed back on that notion.

“Science has a long timeline and trajectory, so this is hardly new,” Kleinz said. “I mean, what we’re seeing out of China right now has been years if not decades in the making. I think everyone’s been watching China for a long period of time. It always becomes a question at which point do people have conviction that what comes out of a foreign jurisdiction measures up to the standard that the FDA and the EMA is assessing technologies on it. And I think we’re increasingly reaching that point.”

Kleinz explained that directly going to China is difficult for UPMC Enterprises, though it has already invested in a technology that emerged from there — Ouro Medicines, which is incorporated in the U.S. and U.K. On Tuesday, Ouro announced that the Food and Drug Administration has granted fast-track designation to the company’s BCMAxCD3 T cell engager antibody investigational candidate for development in the treatment of autoimmune hemolytic anemia and for immune thrombocytopenia.  

“It’s doing a bispecific antibody potentially for autoimmune indications, and that antibody originated in China, and the first clinical studies in Phase1 are ongoing in China,” Kleinz said.

While, American healthcare is getting more comfortable with Chinese innovation, it appears that interest in China isn’t solely about that country finally catching up to regulatory standards in the developed world. It’s tied fundamentally to certain uncomfortable truths about the innovation cycle at home.

“We’re also, I think, at a point where people feel like the old business model, the development path that has been developed in the U.S. and in Europe is just too slow,” he noted. “We’re seeing a tremendous pace of ideation and innovation in life sciences, but these ideas are unfortunately still taking 10, 12 years to make it to patients.”

This makes China attractive because data can be generated quickly and can also be high quality though Kleinz advised companies to always “trust but verify” when looking to leverage innovation or data emerging from there.

I think [interest in] China is hardly new, but I think it’s getting to this tipping point where biotech, where science and pharma realize we can’t ignore it anymore,” he said. “Oftentimes, the argument is around whether it’s us versus them. I think in the end, the whole world will be better off if we try to allocate resources where they’re best put to work.”

In other words, what I inferred from this though it was not discussed with Kleinz is simply this: do what’s right for the business and patients, and ignore much of the rhetoric about China emerging from Washington, D.C., that is very much about reining in the country.

Investors and other healthcare stakeholders probably have already noted that last week China reported a record $1.15 trillion trade surplus in 2025, a 20% increase from the year before. So it doesn’t look like the current administration’s attempts at isolation efforts have really panned out.

Photo: traffic_analyzer, Getty Images

Correction: An earlier version misspelled Ouro Medicines