China’s Ministry of Commerce and Ministry of Science and Technology published a draft update to the catalogue of technologies prohibited or restricted for export on Friday, October 16, that would ban the transfer of ownership of proprietary Chinese platforms in five technology areas covering cell and gene therapy, small nucleic acid (siRNA) drugs and pathogen gain of function research. Platforms, in the draft’s definition, are reusable technology sets that can support multiple drugs. A parallel restriction, short of a ban, would require regulatory approval for full transfers of proprietary drug target identification and verification technologies in cell and gene therapy and siRNA. Biopharma is one of about 40 technology areas in the update, which also covers artificial intelligence and photovoltaics.
The carve outs are the story. Licensing transactions in the same technologies are exempt, out licensing of restricted target technologies would generally be approved, and outsourced research and manufacturing services are untouched. That distinction protects the dominant deal structure of the last two years: foreign transactions in Chinese biotech assets reached 120 billion dollars as of August 2026, up 36 percent year over year according to figures Fierce Biotech attributed to China’s drug regulators, and PharmCube counts only 5 of 121 cross border out licensing deals in 2026 through July 1 that involved an ownership transfer. Locust Walk analysis cited by BioSpace puts China based assets at 58 percent of all licensing deal value so far this year, against 26 percent for US based companies, while China headquartered companies were just 1 percent of acquisition value.
The practical effect is therefore narrower than the headline. A deal of the shape of AstraZeneca’s roughly 1 billion dollar acquisition of Gracell Biotechnologies and its FasTCAR platform, announced in late 2023, would likely not be permitted under the draft, Fierce Biotech reported. Deals of the shape of this week’s Roche Hansoh antibody drug conjugate licence, 400 million dollars upfront inside a potential 15 billion dollar package with no ownership transfer, are exactly what the draft leaves alone. Aaron Gu, a healthcare partner at the Chinese law firm Han Kun, summarised the draft as “regulating transfers while leaving licensing unconstrained” and called it significantly better than market expectations; a rumoured May list had reportedly included multispecific antibodies, antibody drug conjugates and protein degraders, none of which appear in the published draft.
The draft is open for public comment until November 15, 2026. For Western deal teams, the read is structural rather than prohibitory: the licensing and NewCo routes into Chinese science remain open and officially blessed, while the full platform acquisition, already rare, becomes the one structure Beijing reserves the right to refuse.