The US Treasury Department is drafting rules on China-related pharmaceutical investment that would, in the main, leave licensing deals for Chinese medicines open, according to three people briefed on the process and cited by Reuters. The exceptions under discussion would cover pathogens and biotechnology that could be weaponised. The text is not final and could change, especially if President Donald Trump weighs in.

The approach would be looser than the curbs some lawmakers want and looser than the tightening applied to other industries on national-security grounds. Large companies, including Pfizer, argue that a broad clampdown would cut them off from compounds in development. GlobalData, cited by Reuters, says almost half of US deals to license medicines from abroad in 2025 involved Chinese firms; the trend continued into 2026.

Recent examples include a Bristol Myers Squibb–Jiangsu Hengrui partnership valued at up to $15.2 billion and a Pfizer–Innovent Biologics collaboration of up to $10.5 billion covering oncology programmes. GlobalData put outbound licensing in Chinese biotech at $115 billion last year. Those figures describe contractual potential, not cash already paid.

Some legislators and smaller US biotechs want tighter screening. They argue that licences, joint ventures and capital accelerate Chinese competitors and create strategic dependence. Proposals such as extending the COINS Act to biotechnology aim to bring those transactions under Treasury review.

Until the regulation is published, the reported direction remains a working draft, not a decision. The final rules will say which licences are allowed, which fields are barred and how risk is assessed. Treasury and the White House have not publicly confirmed the details given by the sources.

For patients the stake is access to pipelines, not a single deal. For security the stake is where know-how transfer stops. This article does not announce an adopted liberalisation and does not confirm a ban: it describes a live regulatory debate.

Image: Treasury Building, Washington / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. A government building, not a lab and not a specific deal. Cropped to 16:9.

Source consulted: US weighs allowing most pharma licensing deals with China | Reuters; Outbound Investment Security Program | US Treasury.