The Two Sessions Signal the "15th Five-Year Plan": Eight Cutting-Edge Medical Tracks to Enter a Golden Five Years!
It's time for the annual two sessions of China again.
At the start of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the upcoming release of the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline in 2026 has drawn significant attention from all sectors of society, with the review of the draft outline becoming one of the core agendas of this year's Two Sessions.
To promote the implementation of the "15th Five-Year Plan" goals and tasks, the draft outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan" proposed 109 major projects in six areas, setting key directions for the development of various industries over the next five years.
In the healthcare field, “The draft outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan" builds on ongoing routine tasks such as public health, medical services, grassroots healthcare, elderly care, and childbirth. It further focuses on "hard tech" areas like emerging industries, new tracks, and cutting-edge technological breakthroughs to lay out relevant medical content, charting a path for frontier technology innovation in the medical field over the next five years.
"15th Five-Year Plan" Outline Draft: Healthcare-Related Content, Source: Xinhua News Agency
Brain-computer interface is undoubtedly one of the hottest healthcare fields during the Two Sessions.
Brain-computer interface, which was highlighted in the local two sessions earlier this year, has now been written into the government work report of China's national two sessions for the first time. It is listed alongside frontier technologies such as future energy, quantum technology, and embodied intelligence as a key future industry to be nurtured. More importantly, the draft outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan" includes brain-computer interface in the projects for cultivating new industries and tracks, and incorporates brain science and brain-inspired research into major projects for frontier technology breakthroughs.
The热度 of brain-computer interfaces in the industry has already become apparent. According to the "Brain-Computer Interface Technology and Application Research Report (2025)" released by the China Academy of Information and Communications Technology (CAICT) and the Brain-Computer Interface Industry Alliance, the total number of brain-computer interface companies in China has exceeded 200. As the primary application field, brain-computer interface applications in healthcare have garnered significant attention from innovative companies and investors. According to incomplete statistics from the VCBeat database, in 2025, there were a total of 24 financings completed in the healthcare sector for brain-computer interfaces, representing a year-on-year increase of 30%.
In clinical diagnosis and treatment scenarios such as neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders, brain-computer interfaces can explore pathological and physiological mechanisms, innovate neural modulation technologies, and effectively enhance disease diagnosis and treatment outcomes. To meet the rehabilitation needs of patients with limb movement, language, and sensory deficits, brain-computer interfaces can create new solutions for motor assistance, communication support, and sensory recovery, improving the quality of patient rehabilitation. In scenarios like brain disease prevention and health management, brain-computer interface products can monitor and analyze brain activity characteristics in real time, prevent potential health issues, and reduce the risk of severe conditions for patients.
According to the planning of relevant national ministries and commissions, within the next five years, China will cultivate 2 to 3 globally influential leading enterprises and a group of specialized and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises, significantly enhancing the innovation capability of China's brain-computer interface industry: In terms of basic software and hardware research, the focus will be on innovating brain signal sensing components, breaking through key brain-computer chips, and improving software tool foundations; at the product level, efforts will be made to accelerate the breakthrough in the development of implantable devices, promote the mass production and iteration of non-implantable devices, and broadly advance auxiliary equipment.
Driven by top-level design and industrial innovation, brain-computer interfaces are about to experience a period of rapid development over the next five years.
In the draft of the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, the prevention and treatment of major diseases and the research and development of innovative drugs have been included in the key projects for frontier technology breakthroughs, pointing the way for industry development.
As of now, China's innovative drugs have achieved significant phased results: according to data from the National Medical Products Administration, 76 innovative drugs were approved for marketing in 2025, hitting a record high; a total of 230 innovative drugs have been approved in the past five years, achieving substantial growth.
More fruitful results are still in reserve. From the perspective of the R&D end, innovative drugs have ushered in a new golden age. By 2025, the active BD (Business Development) trading of innovative drug pipelines in China, along with the concentrated implementation of company IPOs, has greatly boosted industry confidence. The ongoing enthusiasm in BD transactions directly reflects multinational corporations' (MNCs) high recognition of China's innovative drug R&D capabilities.
Entering 2026, this momentum continues: In January alone, the total value of BD transactions for innovative drugs in China reached $34.6 billion, with upfront payments exceeding $3 billion, equivalent to one-fourth of the total transactions in 2025. This indicates that the globalization of China's innovative drug industry is accelerating, with more innovative drugs moving from clinical stages to practical applications under global technological and financial support.
In the future, technical routes such as small nucleic acid drugs, gene and cell therapy, and small molecule drugs, as well as disease areas like cancer, autoimmune disorders, neurology, and metabolism, will be the key focus for R&D breakthroughs and capital investment.
At the policy level, efforts are continuously being intensified. China will promote the implementation of a drug trial data protection system and explore establishing market exclusivity systems for pediatric drugs and orphan drugs. For innovative drugs targeting new mechanisms and new targets, enhanced communication, clinical trials, registration applications, and review and approval processes across the entire chain will be provided to help achieve the "China-first launch" of innovative drugs. Meanwhile, the review and approval process for cell and gene therapy drugs will be optimized to further facilitate the path to market for innovative drugs.
In the draft of the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, high-end medical devices are one of the major projects for the cultivation and development of new industries and new tracks.
The innovative breakthrough of high-end medical devices is a long-term continuous process. Thanks to the joint efforts of all parties in recent years, China has made breakthrough progress in some products. Even based on holding a relatively high share in the domestic market, these products have started to expand overseas.
In 2025, the National Medical Products Administration released the "Announcement on Optimizing Lifecycle Regulation to Support Innovative Development of High-End Medical Devices," using policy integration and innovation to support the high-end medical device industry. It proposed comprehensive support policies covering the entire chain from R&D project initiation, registration applications, evaluation and approval, to post-market re-evaluation. Focusing on core areas, it also formulated the "Priority Approval Directory for High-End Medical Devices (2025 Edition)" to further support high-end medical devices with significant clinical application value and urgent clinical needs.
Priority Approval Catalog for High-End Medical Devices (2025 Edition), Source: National Medical Products Administration
Moreover, national and local policies have provided strong support for domestically produced high-end medical devices in tender procurement and the first (set) policy, helping them打通 "the last mile into hospitals."
However, it cannot be ignored that Chinese-produced products still have obvious shortcomings in some high-end fields. For example, there is still significant room for breakthroughs in core components and key parts of high-end imaging equipment, whole machine systems of surgical robots and various other treatment devices, as well as in the field of high-end interventional consumables. In the future, establishing a multidisciplinary collaborative mechanism will become an important direction for the industry to achieve critical breakthroughs.
Among the 109 major projects proposed in the draft of the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, advanced new materials are one of the projects aimed at enhancing industrial foundational capabilities and competitiveness.
In the medical field, biomedical materials are an indispensable material foundation supporting the development of the medical device industry. As part of high-end new materials, they are essential.
Currently, China is accelerating breakthroughs in biomedical materials. The most typical initiative is the "Biomedical Materials Innovation Task List" jointly launched by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA). In 2023 and 2025, two batches of lists were released, including dozens of types of materials and more than a hundred companies and institutions.
Key Biomedical Materials and Applications, Source: Ministry of Industry and Information Technology
Concentrated efforts are expected to solve the long-standing "bottleneck" problems in the field of biomedical materials, break foreign technology monopolies, and achieve independent control of key materials.At the same time, in addition to innovative enterprises in the medical and health field, upstream energy companies, universities, and research institutions are also involved. The collaborative innovation of the upstream and downstream industrial chains helps accelerate the tackling of technical difficulties in biomedical materials and enhance the overall competitiveness of the industrial chain.
Artificial intelligence is one of the key focuses of frontier technology research in the draft outline of the "15th Five-Year Plan," with medical AI, as an important branch, gaining strong momentum.
Currently, the medical artificial intelligence industry in China has entered a new phase of large-scale implementation from technical pilot projects. Especially since 2025, two significant changes have emerged in the medical AI field: breakthrough advancements in large models and the large-scale participation of medical institutions.
In the past year, large medical models in China have experienced a surge in development. With continuous technological breakthroughs, these models have transitioned from rule-driven to data-driven approaches and advanced from single-modal to multi-modal integration. Their capability boundaries have also expanded from "recognition" and "generation" to "logical reasoning," progressively aligning with human cognitive abilities. Meanwhile, leading public hospitals in China, represented by the top 100 hospitals, have widely implemented AI infrastructure and various applications under the impetus of the large model wave.
According to the analysis in the "2025 Medical Artificial Intelligence Report" by VBInsight, medical AI is currently benefiting from multiple dividends of capital, policy support, and collaboration with doctors. However, to convert these resources into continuously realizable value, it is still necessary to further reduce R&D costs, resolve the "value divergence" of medical AI (that is, the difficulty in synchronizing patient experience with hospital efficiency), and make substantial progress in business models and payment systems.
As AI technology accelerates in iteration and becomes more accessible, the future competition in medical AI will no longer be limited to the technology itself but will require the construction of a value system around AI products that benefits all participants.For medical institutions, only by transforming medical AI from a mere cost investment into a value-added project that enhances core competitiveness can the long-term value of AI be realized.
In the draft of the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, biomanufacturing is one of the major engineering projects for cultivating and developing new industries and fields.
As an important technical pathway supporting the bioeconomy, biomanufacturing is continuously evolving towards high-throughput, intelligent, and controllable directions. However, biomanufacturing still faces many challenges. Among them, pilot-scale testing serves as the critical bridge from laboratory samples to market products and is also the core support for crossing the "valley of death" in the transformation of scientific and technological achievements.
Currently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) are vigorously promoting the enhancement of pilot-scale capabilities in biomanufacturing, establishing platforms for pilot-scale capacity development. In November 2025, the first batch of platform lists was announced. In the biopharmaceutical field, companies such as Joinn Biologics, Bloomage BioTech, Changchun Biologic Products, Qilu Pharmaceutical, Truking Technology, and Womei Biologics, as well as research institutions like the Tianjin University Institute of Synthetic Biology, Guoke Wenzhou Academy, and Xiang’an Innovation Lab, were included.
With the systematic layout of the pilot-scale capability construction platform and the iterative application of AI technology in biomanufacturing, the field of biomanufacturing is expected to achieve substantial breakthroughs in this key area over the next five years, thereby driving the overall leapfrog development of the industry.
In the draft of the "15th Five-Year Plan" outline, life sciences and biotechnology have been included in major frontier science and technology projects.
In recent years, China has seen rapid development in frontier fields such as gene editing, synthetic biology, stem cells and regenerative medicine, brain science, and the intersection of large biological models with artificial intelligence, leading to a constant emergence of new technologies and innovative therapies.
The continuous development of omics technology facilitates panoramic research on life; the constant innovation of cutting-edge molecular diagnostic technologies aids in the early diagnosis and screening of diseases; gene therapy is steadily advancing in more genetic disorders and rare diseases; regenerative medicine achieves breakthroughs in multiple areas, accelerating clinical translation; antibody drug technology has reached a relatively mature stage, with novel antibody drugs gradually moving from clinical trials to application; and the innovation of targeted protein degradation technology breaks the limitation of undruggable protein targets… From a series of major advancements outlined in the "2025 China Life Science and Biotechnology Development Report" by the China National Center for Biotechnology Development, the significant progress in China's life science and biotechnology fields can be intuitively felt.
It can be foreseen that, driven by multiple forces such as technology, policy, and capital, more fundamental research achievements in the fields of life sciences and biotechnology will be accelerated into actual products, providing stronger support for innovative drugs and innovative medical devices.
The draft of the "15th Five-Year Plan" Outline and the Government Work Report have identified several other frontier technologies as key areas for research or cultivation, including,Quantum technology, controlled nuclear fusion, green hydrogen energy, etc., can all be applied to the medical field, playing a key role in disease diagnosis and drug development.
For example, in the field of quantum technology, Weici Technology has integrated quantum technology into the healthcare industry to meet the demands for diagnosis of major cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases as well as scientific research. It has independently developed two high-end innovative medical devices: a magnetocardiograph and a magnetoencephalograph. Bose Quantum collaborates with research institutions and medical organizations to explore practical quantum computing applications in scenarios such as protein structure prediction, molecular similarity screening, peptide docking, and allosteric site prediction. By sharing quantum computing power and data resources, it accelerates the processes of drug development and clinical validation.
In the field of controlled nuclear fusion, Sichuan and Anhui provinces have issued policies identifying the commercialization of controlled nuclear fusion as one of their key future industries, with medical applications being one of the scenarios. Taking the example of Zhongke Medical Valley in Hefei, in January 2026, the "Fusion Medicine" strategy was proposed. The initial focus will be on research and development efforts for projects such as the application of radiation-resistant microorganisms in the medical field, new advancements in FLASH radiotherapy and low-dose treatment, and the latest developments in BNCT systems.
In the field of cutting-edge technology, from top-level design, basic research, and成果转化, to industrial implementation and practical application, a complete chain still needs to be built, and a longer cycle must be experienced. The road to industrial development is long, and it cannot be achieved without the deep collaboration and close cooperation of all parties in the industry chain.
Under the guidance of national policies, it is also expected that research institutions, innovative enterprises, and investment institutions will move in the same direction, jointly contributing to achieving globally leading innovations in the healthcare industry.