China’s Biotech Startups: Between Hype and Hard Truths

Conflicting Narratives in a Growing Sector

China’s early-stage biotech and drug development startups have been riding a seesaw of soaring optimism and sobering reality. On one side are upbeat proclamations of a biotech boom – thousands of new firms, gleaming research parks, and bold plans to rival Western pharma giants. State media celebrates companies like Shanghai-based Henlius Biotech, which posted a second consecutive annual profit in 2024, with revenue rising to CN¥ 5.72 billion (∼$783 million) (shine.cn). Innovators such as BeiGene have become global players, reporting $3.8 billion in 2024 revenue and declaring themselves “a global oncology powerhouse”shine.cn. Four homegrown firms – Henlius, BeiGene, Innovent Biologics, and Zai Lab – are now often touted as China’s emerging pharma powerhouses, turning scientific know-how into growing sales at home and abroadshine.cnshine.cn. These successes, unimaginable just a decade ago, feed a narrative that China’s biotech industry has reached an “inflection point” on its way to world prominence (shine.cn).

Yet alongside these triumphs runs a more chastened storyline. In hushed tones, founders recount the struggle to keep the lights on amid a “capital winter” that has dragged on for three years (yicai.com). Venture capital that once gushed into Chinese biotech now feels “as distant as a story from a bygone era,” with unprofitable startups unable to get a single penny of new funding (yicai.com). For every headline-grabbing IPO or licensing mega-deal, there are countless quiet failures. “Failure is commonplace, [but] it remains taboo – a stigma unbroken since the collapse of Stemirna Therapeutics,” notes one industry commentary (pharmcube.com). In short, China’s biotech startup scene is caught between buoyant optimism and a brutal shakeout – a dual reality that calls to mind an old line: all thriving companies resemble one another; each failed firm fails in its own way (pharmcube.com).

From Boom to “Biotech Winter”

Not long ago, Chinese biotech was the darling of global investors. Throughout the late 2010s, Beijing lavished support on biopharma as a strategic industry, rolling out funding programs and permissive stock exchange rules that let pre-revenue companies list on Shanghai’s STAR Market and Hong Kong’s exchange (pharmcube.com). Venture capital and private equity flooded in, fueling lofty valuations. Many investors and founders had never experienced a downturn – some “knew nothing but bull markets,” as one observer put it (pharmcube.com).

This exuberance crested around 2020–2021. In 2021, China’s healthcare and biotech startups raised a record number of financing rounds (1,660 deals), according to IT Juzi data (yicai.com). Investment volumes were enormous – roughly ¥3677 billion yuan that year – but the party didn’t last (yicai.com). By 2022 the cycle had turned. As global markets soured and local policies shifted, Chinese bioventures were plunged into a funding drought. The number of healthcare financing deals fell to 937 in 2023, and total capital raised plummeted by two-thirds from the 2021 peak (yicai.com). “Investors not only cut back on deals, the average check size also dropped markedly – mainly because there is no money to invest,” a Chinese financial journal dryly noted (yicai.com).

By 2024, talk of a “创投寒冬” (venture capital winter) was everywherey (yicai.com). Venture funds themselves struggled to raise money, with the number of new funds closed in the first half of 2024 down ~49% year-on-year (yicai.com). One veteran VC, Wu Shichun, called it the worst crisis in his 20+ year career, with fundraising, investment thresholds, and exit channels all under unprecedented strain (yicai.com). Unsurprisingly, VCs grew stingy. Many stopped backing early-stage projects altogether, focusing only on startups that had turned a profit (yicai.com). As one founder lamented, “no investor will fund early-stage projects now… for a company like us that hasn’t achieved profitability, it’s impossible to get financing” (yicai.com).

Domestic investors weren’t the only ones pulling back. Dollar-denominated venture funds – many of them U.S.- or Asia-based – have largely withdrawn from China’s biotech scene (yicai.com). “USD funds have exited one after another,” an entrepreneur observed, noting that even top local VCs have refocused away from Chinese deals (yicai.com). Qiming Venture, a prominent investor in Chinese healthcare, “has shifted its focus to overseas business… [and is] no longer investing in companies like ours,” said one startup CEO (yicai.com). Data back this trend: U.S. venture capital funds slashed investment in Chinese biotech by over 50% in the past two years (newsletters.holoniq.com), amid geopolitical frictions. The chill is evident on the stock market as well – Chinese pharma and biotech shares fell ~13% in 2024 even as the broader Shanghai/Shenzhen index rose 15% (merics.org).

Multiple factors fed this freeze. Globally, rising interest rates in 2022–23 sucked liquidity out of risky assets, and China’s own economic slowdown dampened risk appetite (phirda.com, phirda.com). VCs who once chased growth at all costs suddenly began demanding clear paths to profitability. Many Chinese drug startups, however, are years away from turning a profit – if ever – and found themselves with no bridge to carry them through the lean times. “There are still plenty of good projects to invest in, but our funds have decreased,” admitted the head of one healthcare-focused VC fund (yicai.com, yicai.com). Investors large and small simply became far more cautious and cash-constrained.

The IPO Lifeline Runs Dry

During the boom, an IPO on Shanghai’s STAR Market or Shenzhen’s ChiNext board was the light at the end of the tunnel for ambitious biotechs. China’s exchanges – along with Hong Kong’s Chapter 18A biotech listings – provided a ready exit for VC backers and a rich capital infusion for startups, even if those companies were loss-making. By mid-decade, dozens of Chinese biotechs had gone public without ever turning a profit. A flagship example was BeiGene: in 2021 it became the world’s first triple-listed biotech, raising a hefty ¥22 billion (≈$3.5 billion) in a STAR Market IPO (forbes.com, davispolk.com). The listing reforms that allowed such flotations were hailed as a triumph of financial innovation, helping promising drug developers tap China’s vast equity markets.

That window, however, abruptly closed. Chinese regulators halted approvals for IPOs by unprofitable companies in mid-2022, effectively ending the free-for-all of early-stage listings (caixinglobal.com). “China’s money-losing IPO fever” broke in 2023, as Caixin Global put it – not a single pre-profit listing application was accepted after June 2022 (caixinglobal.com). The pipeline of biotech IPO candidates suddenly jammed up. Startups that had counted on “going public” as their next financing round were left in limbo. As market conditions worsened, even firms that had already obtained approval delayed or scrapped their IPO plans (reuters.com). The once-reliable exit route via stock markets was frozen solid.

For venture investors, this was a nightmare scenario. Without IPOs or acquisitions, their capital was trapped in illiquid startups with burning cash piles. Many invoked “redemption rights” – contractual clauses forcing founders to buy back shares if no IPO happens by a set date (reuters.com). Exits through redemption nearly tripled to 641 cases in 2023 (reuters.com). In other words, hundreds of investors essentially asked for their money back, often with a premium. Of course, most startups did not have the cash to redeem those shares, leading to legal disputes and, in some cases, the brink of bankruptcy for the companies (reuters.com, reuters.com). A Chinese law firm estimated that some 14,000 startups were at risk of redemption requests as of late 2024 (reuters.com) – a staggering figure that underscores how widespread the fallout has been beyond just biotech.

The IPO freeze also undermined Beijing’s push for tech self-reliance, since it discouraged investment in precisely the innovative fields policymakers wanted to promote (reuters.com). Recognizing this, regulators have begun tentatively reopening the spigot. By early 2025, there were signs that listings for high-tech and biotech firms might resume, with the STAR Market again poised to accept money-losing applicants under certain conditions (caixinglobal.com, caixinglobal.com). But confidence takes time to rebuild. In the meantime, founders and VCs have had to seek alternative paths to liquidity.

New Exits: Licensing and M&A Fill the Void

Necessity is the mother of invention in Chinese biotech finance. With public markets largely off-limits in 2023–24, companies turned aggressively to licensing deals, partnerships, and creative corporate structuring to survive. In fact, 2024 became a banner year for “license-out” agreements – deals in which a Chinese developer sells or out-licenses the rights to a drug (often to a multinational pharma) in exchange for upfront cash and future royalties.

Through the first three quarters of 2024, Chinese pharma firms struck ~73 licensing deals worth a total $33.6 billion, double the value from the year prior (phirda.com). Many of these deals were eye-popping: some single assets garnered upfront and milestone payments exceeding $100 million (phirda.co)m, immediately replenishing the biotech’s coffers to fund other R&D. Global giants like Pfizer, Merck, and others have been especially keen to in-license promising cancer drugs, antibodies, or cell therapies from Chinese labs – a testament to the scientific strides made by Chinese startups. (According to one analysis, 28% of all innovative drugs in-licensed by large pharma in 2024 came from Chinese biopharma companies, a record high (biospace.com.)

Another improvised exit route gaining traction is the “NewCo” spin-off model. Rather than wait indefinitely for an IPO, several leading firms have carved out specific pipeline assets into new overseas-incorporated companies, which then raise capital independently or even pursue separate listings or acquisitions abroad (phirda.com). In 2024, Hengrui Medicine, Kangnuoia, Genor Biopharma, and AnMai Biotech each used a NewCo strategy to attract foreign investment and secure fresh funding for their drug candidates (phirda.com). These complex deals allow the parent company to monetize part of its pipeline (by selling a stake in the NewCo or getting acquired) and return some value to investors, even while the main company might remain unprofitable. It’s essentially an attempt to “create your own exit” when domestic capital markets are shut. As one industry association observed, such license-outs and NewCo arrangements have become a “barely acceptable ‘exit’ pathway” for investors still committed to biotech during the IPO drought (phirda.com).

While ingenious, these alternatives are only stop-gaps. They don’t solve the core problem: how to deliver returns to investors in the absence of a vibrant stock market (phirda.com). A veteran biotech VC would note that licensing deals, however rich, ultimately depend on big pharma’s appetite and can’t replace a healthy pipeline of IPOs in the long run. Chinese commentators have openly called for easing listing requirements and reviving the secondary market for innovative drug companies, to “rejuvenate the stagnant pond” of biotech capital (phirda.com).

Policymakers seem to be listening – the Politburo’s December 2024 meeting signaled a shift to “moderately loose” monetary policy, the first such easing in a decade, aiming to lower financing costs (phirda.com). The hope is that cheaper capital and pro-innovation policies will thaw the funding winter in 2025. Optimists predict a gradual recovery in venture investing as interest rates fall and China’s markets stabilize (phirda.com, phirda.com). But even the optimists concede that any rebound will be measured in baby steps, not giant leaps.

The Policy Squeeze: Pricing and Profits Under Pressure

Even as capital markets improve, China’s biotech entrepreneurs face another stiff headwind: a harsh pricing and reimbursement environment at home. Over the past five years, Beijing has pursued aggressive policies to drive down drug prices – great for public health budgets, but tough on drug makers’ profit projections. Chief among these are the National Reimbursement Drug List (NRDL) negotiations and centralized volume-based procurement (VBP) tenders. Together, they have fundamentally altered the calculus of drug commercialization in China.

The NRDL, which decides which medicines are covered by national insurance, has become a high-stakes annual ritual. Companies vying to get their new therapies onto the NRDL must offer steep price cuts to win coverage. The 2024 NRDL update was especially punishing: only 37% of new drugs under negotiation made it onto the list, and those that did accepted an average 63% price cut off their original price (simon-kucher.com, simon-kucher.com).

This was the largest yearly price reduction seen since NRDL reforms began in 2017. (By comparison, the average cut was ~57–61% in the preceding two years (simon-kucher.com.) From 2019 to 2024, new drugs added to the reimbursement list have typically seen their prices halved (50–65% reductions) (merics.org). Such deep discounts dramatically limit the revenue potential in China for innovative drugs (merics.org). A report by a European think tank bluntly noted that this approach “constrains the profitability of firms within China, and dampens investor interest” (merics.org). In short, a biotech can spend years developing a novel therapy, only to find that winning broad market access means selling it at a fraction of the expected price – a tough proposition for recouping R&D costs.

Many Chinese biotechs have learned this the hard way. Dr. Yuan, founder of MicuRx, launched a new antibiotic (contezolid) in 2021 and managed to get it onto the NRDL within six months – a rapid victory of market access. The catch? He had to price contezolid at half the daily cost of its 20-year-old comparator drug (pharmcube.com). The discount was deeper than he expected, though still just about acceptable (pharmcube.com). Even so, Yuan admits that “even globally competitive drugs like contezolid struggle to recoup R&D costs under China’s current reimbursement system.”(pharmcube.com)

Facing this reality, MicuRx took its show on the road: it raised ¥1 billion via a STAR Market IPO to fund Phase III trials of contezolid in the U.S. and Europe (pharmcube.com). Going global is no longer just an aspiration for Chinese biotechs – it’s becoming a necessity for survival, given that domestic sales may never generate the returns once envisioned. As the Merics institute observed, Chinese firms working on costly breakthrough therapies (like cell therapies or ADC cancer drugs) “lack the financial power [domestically] to compete at the frontier of innovative drugs” (merics.org). Many are therefore “focused on the North American and European markets”, often partnering with multinationals who bankroll the pricey trials in exchange for rights (merics.org).

The Legend Biotech story – wherein a Nanjing startup co-developed a CAR-T cancer therapy with Johnson & Johnson, leading to a blockbuster drug (Carvykti) – is the poster child of this model (merics.org). It’s a successful template, but it also underscores that Chinese innovation increasingly seeks validation (and monetization) abroad, partly because of China’s squeezed pricing at home.

Then there is VBP – volume-based procurement, the government’s bulk-buy tender system primarily for generics and some off-patent drugs. Since 2018, round after round of VBP tenders have slashed the prices of widely used medicines in exchange for guaranteed large-volume sales to public hospitals. On average, drugs selected in the first three national VBP rounds saw prices cut by ~52–54% (eversana.com). Later rounds have been equally brutal: in some cases, prices for certain drugs (and even medical devices) have dropped by 80–95% under VBP (zs.com, invesco.com). For example, coronary stents – not a drug, but indicative of the trend – fell by 93% in the landmark 2021 device procurement (zs.com).

While VBP so far mostly targets mature generic drugs, it has profoundly altered the market dynamics. Commodity generics in China are now a low-margin volume game, and even originator companies have seen their legacy products’ profits evaporate after being subjected to VBP. This policy has, in one fell swoop, consolidated the generic drug industry (only the biggest, most efficient manufacturers can survive at such low prices) and pushed many pharma firms to pivot toward innovative drugs that are temporarily exempt from bidding wars. But of course, those innovative drugs eventually face the NRDL gauntlet instead.

In combination, NRDL negotiations and VBP tenders squeeze margins at both ends of the pharmaceutical spectrum – the cutting-edge new therapies and the standard older medicines. The result is that China’s healthcare system is obtaining medicines at increasingly affordable prices (a win for patients and insurers), but biotech investors have to scale back expectations.

A cancer drug that might have commanded $100,000 per year in the U.S. could end up priced at $15,000 in China after reimbursement negotiation – or even lower. That reality is forcing hard conversations in boardrooms and VC pitch meetings. If the addressable domestic market is effectively capped by state pricing, how many yuan of profit will that shiny new antibody really generate? The answer often disappoints, leading investors to demand that startups plan for global markets or find cost-saving innovations, rather than count on Chinese sales alone.

Survival Strategies: Adaptation in Lean Times

Despite these challenges, not all is doom and gloom. A Darwinian winnowing is underway – and the survivors are adapting fast. “In lean times, only the nimblest adapt,” goes an adage (pharmcube.com), and Chinese biotech entrepreneurs are proving remarkably resourceful when pushed to the brink. They are cutting costs, refocusing pipelines, and hustling for any non-dilutive funding available.

Some have embraced an ultra-lean operating model, basically stretching each yuan of capital as far as possible. One founder quipped that his company even canceled the office cleaning service (which cost only a few hundred yuan a month) just to conserve cash (yicai.com). More materially, startups are trimming headcount, shelving peripheral R&D projects, and negotiating discounts from suppliers – all to extend their cash runways. “Open-source and throttle expenditure” has become a mantra (yicai.com). The idea is simple: if you can survive long enough, the cycle will eventually turn, and you need to still be at the table when it does. “As long as we stay alive – stay in the game – perhaps we’ll get dealt a good hand again,” one optimistic founder told Jianwen magazine (yicai.com). That gritty determination is a common thread among those still standing.

Corporate strategy is also shifting. Many firms are pruning their pipelines to focus on the most promising (or nearest-term) assets, rather than spreading bets widely as in the boom days. CStone Pharmaceuticals, for instance, saw its valuation halved by the capital winter, prompting a dramatic overhaul by its CEO in 2022 (pharmcube.com, pharmcube.com). The company shuttered a costly manufacturing plant that was sitting idle, cut back to core programs, and struck partnership deals with Eli Lilly and a domestic giant, Hengrui, to co-market its drugs (pharmcube.com).

The upfront payments from those deals provided vital liquidity. CStone even sold the regional rights to one of its cancer drugs to a European pharma (Servier) for $50 million (pharmcube.com). These moves, while painful, helped CStone achieve its first profitable half-year in 2024, after years of steep losses (pharmcube.com). It’s a prime example of belt-tightening and strategic triage paying off. Others have followed suit: closing facilities, out-licensing secondary programs, and focusing only on winners.

Another lifeline has been the support of China’s sprawling local government venture funds. Dozens of provincial and city governments maintain special funds to invest in emerging industries, biotech included. In flush times, private VCs often derided these state-guided funds as slow or politically driven. But in the capital winter, startup CEOs are now “crisscrossing China, chasing local government investment funds – a lifeline for biotechs amid the drought,” as one founder described (pharmcube.com). These public funds have indeed stepped up: nearly 41% of all venture fund capital in 2023 came from government-linked sources, up from 30% in 2020 (rhg.com).

Local governments see supporting biopharma as aligned with industrial policy goals, and they are injecting patient capital where pure financial investors fled. Still, bureaucracy can be a hurdle. State investors also demand reassurance – as one director of a state fund noted, they face audits and scrutiny, and thus can’t be too lenient (reuters.com). There is even talk of introducing “fault tolerance” for state VCs, to allow them to tolerate some losses in pursuit of innovation (reuters.com). All told, government money is no panacea, but it has prevented a good number of startups from flatlining and provided bridge financing to get through the storm.

Founders, for their part, are maturing through this adversity. Many who leapt into biotech in the boom years with sky-high ambitions have now been schooled in the “secrets and hardships of biotech entrepreneurship” (pharmcube.com). They echo classic startup wisdom: raise what you need (and maybe a bit less), spend every dollar wisely, and don’t burn so fast that you snap before the next milestone (pharmcube.com, pharmcube.com). In interviews, seasoned CEOs emphasize “science, strategy, luck, resilience and adaptability” as the ingredients for survival (pharmcube.com). The flashy tropes of the bubble era – massive labs, hiring sprees, me-too pipelines – have given way to a more sober ethos: do more with less, and always have a Plan B (or C). This pragmatism marks a cultural shift in China’s biotech sector, which in its first decade often seemed to chase the appearance of success (big fundraises, fancy offices) as much as success itself. Now, reality is the strict tutor.

Glimmers of Hope (and Hype)

Even as the industry’s struggles dominate headlines, genuine bright spots continue to shine. China’s biotech ecosystem today is far more mature and globally connected than it was ten years ago. Top Chinese biotechs are launching novel medicines, entering international markets, and even outperforming Western rivals in certain niches. For example, a domestic drugmaker, Akeso, made waves with a new cancer immunotherapy that outperformed a leading Merck drug in trials, hailed as a potential “breakthrough” on par with DeepMind’s impact in AI (yahoo.com). Success stories like this fuel the enduring optimism that China can not only play catch-up but occasionally leapfrog in biotech innovation.

Big Pharma certainly isn’t writing China off. On the contrary, multinationals are deepening R&D collaborations and investment in Chinese startups, seeking to tap into local scientific talent. Merck, Novartis, and Lilly have all inked major deals with Chinese biotechs in 2023–2024, spanning areas from oncology to metabolic disease. These partnerships often come with hefty upfront payments (helping the startups financially) and also lend credibility. Global capital markets, too, remain accessible to the crème of Chinese biotechs. Several companies have successfully listed on NASDAQ or NYSE in recent years, albeit amid tighter U.S. regulatory scrutiny. And Hong Kong – somewhat insulated from mainland policy swings – continues to host Chinese biotech IPOs, though at a slower pace. In short, the genuine scientific advancements in China’s labs are still attracting money – just in a more discerning way.

Within China, there are hints of a resurgence in confidence. As mentioned, policymakers have signaled more support: easier monetary policy, potential revival of IPO approvals, and rhetoric about valuing “innovative drugs” as a growth engine (indeed, China’s 2024 government work report mentioned “innovative drugs” for the first time ever (merics.org). Local governments are announcing fresh incentives to lure biotech firms to their tech parks – from rent subsidies to tax breaks. There is also an ongoing effort to reform the NRDL process to better reward truly novel drugs (for instance, a pilot “value-based pricing” scheme that might allow some innovative therapies to secure higher reimbursement if they address unmet needs) (simon-kucher.com, gtlaw.com). How much these measures will move the needle remains to be seen, but they indicate that China wants its biotech sector not just to survive, but to thrive in the long run.

At the same time, industry insiders caution against a return of irrational exuberance. The excesses of the last boom – overlapping me-too drug programs, sky-high valuations based on little data – have left a hangover that won’t disappear overnight. There are still dozens of small biotechs with dubious prospects that may eventually fold or be acquired for pennies. The shakeout is weeding out weaker players, and perhaps that is a necessary, if painful, step in the ecosystem’s evolution. In an ironic way, the current hardship could lay a stronger foundation: the companies that emerge will be those with solid science and prudent management, rather than just good storytelling. As one Chinese investor put it, “Bad times make good companies”. The hope is that when funding does flow freely again, it will be rewarding the truly innovative and efficient firms, not feeding another bubble.

The Long Road Ahead

In the style of Bartleby – who in The Economist often muses on workplaces and corporate culture – we might say that China’s biotech entrepreneurs have gotten a crash course in corporate sobriety. The mood has shifted from hubris to humility. Grandiose talk of creating the next Genentech has given way to a quieter resolve to grind through challenges. This humbling phase does not mean the end of China’s biotech dream; rather, it may signal a coming-of-age. The sector is adjusting to a new normal of scarcer capital and stricter benchmarks, which could ultimately yield more sustainable businesses. The path to success in drug development is famously a marathon, not a sprint – and Chinese startups are learning to pace themselves for the long haul.

The coming years will test whether the recent pessimism was cyclical or something more structural. On one hand, there is cautious reason to believe the cycle will turn. Global investors still have dry powder, and if China’s economy stabilizes and U.S.–China tensions don’t worsen, capital could slowly return. Already, some contrarian funds are bottom-fishing in Chinese biotech, sensing that valuations have overcorrected. And if even a few of the late-stage startups hit scientific or commercial paydirt (say, a home-grown blockbuster drug, or a lucrative FDA approval), that could reignite excitement. Biotech is an inherently long-odds game – today’s “struggling” startup can become tomorrow’s star with one clinical trial success.

On the other hand, certain headwinds are here to stay. The Chinese government is unlikely to abandon its aggressive pricing policies, given their popularity and effectiveness at curbing healthcare costs. Geopolitical scrutiny of Chinese tech, including biotech, will remain intense; access to Western markets and capital will be contingent on diplomatic currents. And the easy money days are gone – both Chinese and foreign investors will demand clearer proof of concept (and paths to profit) before cutting checks. In effect, China’s biotech sector must learn to stand on its own merits, not just on the froth of speculative capital or policy favors.

In a recent panel, a seasoned biotech CEO in Shanghai offered a fitting analogy: China’s biotech industry is no longer a young sapling in a greenhouse – it’s been transplanted into the open, where winds blow cold and only deep roots will hold. The shakeout of 2022–2024, he suggested, will be remembered as the period when the sector’s mettle was truly tested. Those companies that survive this trial by winter will be stronger for it – battle-hardened, efficient, and perhaps even profitable. Meanwhile, new startups will continue to form (in fact, some argue that now is the best time to start a biotech, when competition for funding is lower and talent is abundant (phirda.com). The ecosystem will regenerate, hopefully wiser than before.

As we survey China’s early-stage biotech landscape in 2025, it’s clear that reality has tempered the once-frenzied optimism, but not extinguished it. The narrative is no longer one of unbridled boom, nor is it outright doom. Instead, it’s a nuanced story of adjustment and resilience. Breakthrough science is still happening – and being commercialized – albeit under tighter financial constraints. Capital is still interested – but asking tougher questions. Valuations are more grounded; expectations, more realistic. In true Economist fashion, one might say the sector is moving from adolescence to adulthood, with all the growing pains that entails.

China’s biotech ambition was never going to be an easy sprint to glory. It is a long game, filled with setbacks and triumphs. For now, the industry remains full of promise but short on cash, buoyed by pockets of progress even as it navigates a valley of challenges. And like Bartleby’s proverbial scrivener, when faced with hype or hysteria, the emerging ethos among China’s biotech builders might well be: “I would prefer not to” – not to get carried away, that is, until the data (and dollars) justify it.