Hong Kong is stepping up its efforts to invest in a cluster of biotech companies, positioning itself as a linchpin in Beijing’s push to reach new levels of innovation and challenge the United States for dominance in the global pharmaceutical market.
“We have a pretty diversified portfolio covering upstream [to] downstream [of the full healthcare value chain], including Chinese medicine, Western medicine, [products] ranging from prevention, diagnostic treatments and [surgical] operations,” HKIC CEO Clara Chan Ka-chai said at the Global Health Summit in Hong Kong on Friday.
She added that HKIC has been linking AI and large language model firms with drug discovery companies in its portfolio, making the process of finding new medicines “cheaper, faster and better”.
HKIC has invested in more than 200 companies “covering high growth, high impact sectors, including biotech and health tech”, Chan said at the event, adding that the internal rate of return on the portfolio since its inception was 14 per cent as of end-2025.