China’s Richest Self-Made Woman Amasses $19.7 Billion Fortune Amid Biotech Boom

China’s richest self-made woman and a former chemistry teacher, Zhong has benefited from bullish sentiment over the company’s new drug candidates and the potentially lucrative deals it has landed with global pharma giants to develop them.

In October, Hansoh struck a $1.5 billion licensing deal with Swiss multinational Roche to jointly develop a drug to treat colon cancer, which entitles it to an $80 million upfront payment, most likely in early 2026, according to Cyrus Ng, Deutsche Bank’s Hong Kong-based Asia healthcare equity research analyst. The deal involves potential milestone payments of around $1.45 billion as well as royalties from future sales.

It’s one of six licensing deals that Hansoh has signed since 2020, of which five were with big pharma firms, such as GSK, Merck and Regeneron, to codevelop drugs to treat obesity and cancer. The company could secure more such deals, especially in therapeutic areas such as oncology, immunology and metabolism disorders, says Tony Ren, Hong Kong-based head of Asia healthcare research at Macquarie Capital.

Long known for churning out copycat drugs, China is morphing into a biotech powerhouse amid rising government support for the sector. In one breakthrough last year, a cancer treatment developed by Hong Kong-listed Akeso bested Merck’s blockbuster drug Keytruda in clinical trials. “China’s biotech ascent has been rapid, propelled by its talent, patient access and a cost-efficient infrastructure,” notes Morgan Stanley in a September research report. The firm estimates that by 2030, drugs from China will touch $34 billion in annual sales globally, a figure that is likely to expand more than sixfold to $220 billion by 2040.

Faced with a raft of soon-to-expire patents, global pharma is increasingly turning to Chinese firms to jointly develop new drug candidates. In turn, these alliances can help China’s drugmakers to crack the global market, which can be daunting, given the prohibitive cost of clinical trials that could cost billions of dollars, and the time-consuming process of securing regulatory approvals, says Ren.

Hansoh is also riding on its strong fundamentals. In the first half of 2025, the company’s sales increased 14% year-on-year to 7.4 billion yuan ($1 billion), while net profit was up 15% to 3.1 billion yuan. Its flagship cancer drug Ameile is taking market share from AstraZeneca’s Tagrisso in China, says Ng. Still, while Hansoh has landed potentially lucrative licensing deals, it faces considerable odds.

Globally, only between 8% and 10% of drugs in Phase I clinical trials end up making it to market, according to Ren. Moreover, the Trump administration could be looking to restrict cheap medicines originating from China, which might hurt American drugmakers, the New York Times reported in September. Deutsche Bank’s Ng, however, notes that Chinese pharma firms can still expand in Asia and Europe, where companies are looking to do licensing deals.

As a self-made billionaire, Zhong is no stranger to hurdles. Graduating with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Jiangsu Normal University in east China in 1982, Zhong got a job teaching chemistry in a local middle school, according to the government-affiliated All-China Women’s Federation. She moved on to work at the drug administration bureau in Lianyungang, Jiangsu province, before setting up Hansoh in 1995. With the backing of investor Cen Junda, who ranks No. 52 with a fortune of $8.55 billion thanks largely to his stake in Hansoh, Zhong grew the company, taking it public in 2019 and raising HK$7.9 billion ($1 billion).

Zhong’s husband, Sun Piaoyang, chairman of Jiangsu Hengrui Pharmaceuticals, which was also backed by Cen, is listed separately at No. 26 with a net worth of $13.6 billion. The two companies are run independently with separate boards, while their daughter, Sun Yuan, is a Hansoh director where she also oversees research and development.