U.S. drugmakers are licensing molecules from China for potential new medicines at an accelerating pace, according to new data, betting they can turn upfront payments of as little as $80 million into multibillion-dollar treatments.

Through June, U.S. drugmakers have signed 14 deals potentially worth $18.3 billion to license drugs from China-based companies. That compares with just two such deals in the year-earlier period, according to data from GlobalData.

That increased pace is expected to continue as U.S. drugmakers look to rebuild pipelines of future products to replace $200 billion worth of medicines that will lose patent protection by the end of the decade, analysts, investors, a banker and a drug company executive said.

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