As Chinese biotech and pharmaceutical firms gain importance on the global stage, foreign investors from sovereign wealth funds to industry players are securing strategic stakes in their future success.

International institutional investors have built up significant positions in Chinese biotech firms over the past decade. These positions often approach, and in some cases exceed, the 5 per cent disclosure threshold for substantial shareholders in Hong Kong.

BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager, held 5.76 per cent stake in Innovent Biologics, according to an analysis of the Hong Kong stock exchange data on shareholdings in the 10 largest Hong Kong-listed biotech and pharmaceutical companies by market value.

All are constituents of the Hang Seng Biotech Index.

That made BlackRock the third-largest institutional shareholder in the company, which signed a deal worth as much as US$11.4 billion, including equity investment, with Japan’s Takeda last year.BlackRock appears as one of the top shareholders in four of the 10 companies analysed. It also held 4.82 per cent of the issued voting shares in 3SBio, 4.72 per cent in WuXi AppTec and 5.61 per cent in WuXi Biologics.