One of China’s largest state capital groups has selected a new batch of fund partners, including the recently formed Sanofi-Cathay Pharmaceutical Innovation Fund, to spearhead its investment efforts in the domestic biopharmaceutical industry.
Shanghai State-Owned Capital Investment, the Shanghai state capital group managing over 140 billion yuan ($19.6 billion) in total assets, signed 10 general partners (GPs) earlier this month to provide the so-called “patient capital” – or financing that prioritises long-term sustainable growth over short-term profits – to fund biopharma innovations in the financial hub on China’s central coast.
The state capital group unveiled these new GPs during a signing ceremony in Shanghai. They include the Sanofi-Cathay Pharmaceutical Innovation Fund, which was established this April between Cathay Capital and the French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi to invest about 2 billion yuan ($280.6 million) in clinical-stage innovative drugs developed in China.
The state investor also signed four healthcare and life sciences-dedicated specialist GPs, namely 3E Bioventures Capital, Cenova Ventures, Proxima Ventures, and TF Capital, alongside three generalist GPs including New Alliance Capital, Chengwei Capital, and Delian Capital.
Its new batch of fund partners included two industry-focused funds managed by Shanghai’s state-backed investment platforms Zhangjiang Science & Technology Venture Capital and Pudong Venture Capital.
Shanghai State-Owned Capital Investment merged with Shanghai Science and Technology Venture Capital Group (Shanghai STVC Group) in April 2024 to become the hundred-billion-yuan state investment group it is today.
By the end of 2024, the group recorded more than 170 billion yuan ($23.9 billion) in combined assets under management (AUM) across 15 active funds under its GPs. In 2024 alone, the group deployed almost 13 billion yuan ($1.8 billion), over 90% of which went into “forward-looking, strategic, emerging industries.”
For biopharma, one of its three focused industries alongside semiconductors and artificial intelligence (AI), Shanghai State-Owned Capital Investment launched a 22.5-billion-yuan ($3.2 billion) biomedicine industry fund-of-funds (FOF) in 2024 to expand its GP portfolio in the industry. In January 2025, the group set up the 15-billion-yuan ($2.1 billion) Shanghai Future Industry Fund, which also covers biomedicine among its investment areas.
As of October 2025, the two umbrella fund platforms have collectively invested nearly 6 billion yuan ($842.7 million) in biomedicine-focused sub-funds, including 18 run by non-government GPs.
Official government data shows that the scale of Shanghai’s biomedicine industry has increased at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.94% to almost 984.7 billion yuan ($138.3 billion) in 2024 from 761.7 billion yuan in 2021.
