Astellas plans further expansion in China

Japanese pharmaceutical firm Astellas is aiming for a strong performance in China over the next few years following its fast-track development in China, especially as the country has been one of the five major global markets for the company since 2019, a senior executive said.

In the past year, the company achieved a record seven approvals for new products and indications in the country, which contributed to a 10.9 percent year-on-year increase in China market revenue — also marking the highest growth seen in recent years. Revenue from the China market — where it entered 31 years ago — reached roughly $550 million in financial year 2024.

Behind such an achievement has been the company's continued investment and accelerated launch of new therapies in the local market, which is currently the company's fourth-largest market by country, said Atsushi Kitamura, chief financial officer of Astellas.

"Growth in the China market from the first quarter of financial year 2025 leaped to a staggering 57.8 percent, driven by various factors, including a first-in-class anti-claudin 18.2 monoclonal antibody, which is the first and the only CLDN18.2-targeted therapy approved in the world for patients with CLDN18.2 positive, unresectable, advanced or recurrent gastric cancer, which was approved in China in January," Kitamura said in an exclusive interview last Tuesday.

He said that the company has made accelerated investments in China, the world's second-largest pharmaceutical market, in recent years. Major initiatives include upgrading the organizational structure of Astellas China in 2021, establishing the regional headquarters in Beijing, and appointing the first local president in China unit last year.

"Riding such waves for robust development, we are accelerating innovation for our next phase of growth. We have achieved two proofs of concept in the first half of this year, and are on track to hopefully achieve another three within the next 12 months," Kitamura said.

The company, he added, currently has nine compounds under clinical development across its areas of focus: immuno-oncology, blindness and regeneration, genetic regulation, and targeted protein degradation.

Aiming to accelerate the delivery of global innovations to Chinese patients, Astellas has included China as a first-tier region in the global development of new medicines, with early-stage programs launching simultaneously, Kitamura said.

For example, after identifying the unmet medical need that Chinese gastric patients account for more than 40 percent of the global total, the company invited Chinese experts to be the leading principal investigators of the global multicenter clinical trial regarding the CLDN18.2-targeted therapy in 2019.

Zhao Ping, president of Astellas China, said: "This therapy marks the first time that we have achieved global simultaneous development and approval for an Astellas product in China. Finding the right path this time, we can apply the experience to future drugs, enabling China to achieve simultaneous development and approval with the globe."

Astellas kicked off the first global Phase I study for a bispecific immune cell engager targeting certain proteins and molecules in China last year, Zhao said.