Two workers converse on one side of a drug production line, as the third worker stand and observe the production on another side, closer to the frame -- biotech coverage from STAT
Workers with China’s Sinovac Biotech stand on a production line in Beijing.Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Allison DeAngelis is the East Coast biotech and venture capital reporter at STAT, reporting where scientific ideas and money meet. She is also co-host of the weekly biotech podcast, The Readout Loud. You can reach Allison on Signal at AllisonDeAngelis.01.

SAN FRANCISCO — Are we entering a world in which all of the exciting new therapeutics come from China?

That question and variations of it could be heard at coffee meetings and late-night cocktail parties this week during the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference. 

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Just days before planes full of biopharma executives and investors touched down in San Francisco, a flurry of companies launched with drug candidates from China. And year-end reports from investment banks laid bare just how much that type of dealmaking had dominated the industry last year. More than a third of the therapeutic molecules bought by pharma companies came from China last year, according to a report from Stifel. That number was zero four years ago. 

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