China's Ten Ministries Issue 15th Five-Year Plan for Pharmaceutical Industry

On September 18, 2026, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and nine other departments issued the 15th Five-Year Plan for the Development of the Pharmaceutical Industry.

The plan calls for strengthening original innovation capacity, focusing on key areas such as major infectious diseases, major chronic diseases, rare diseases and pediatric medicines, reinforcing the principal role of enterprises in innovation, and accelerating the upgrade of China's innovative drug and medical device research and development toward first-in-class, breakthrough and disruptive advances.

The plan also calls for supporting pharmaceutical enterprises in targeting frontier medical science and technology to develop a batch of first-in-class (FIC) drugs with new targets, new mechanisms and new drug types, as well as best-in-class (BIC) drugs, and to accelerate the research, development and application of a batch of frontier and leading high-end medical devices.