American healthcare costs are sky-high; as treatments get pricier and the number of patients swells owing to an ageing population, they are getting higher. Chinese biotechnology is increasingly sophisticated and, as its companies gain scale, getting cheaper.

A growing number of American drugmakers, from start-ups to big pharma, rely on firms like WuXi AppTec and WuXi Biologics, which conduct drug research on behalf of clients and manufacture compounds used in drugmaking.