Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry is in the top tier in the country. — China Daily
GUANGZHOU: Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong province, is sparing no effort to build a global hub for innovation and development of its biopharmaceutical industry, a city official says.
This is expected to inject strong momentum into the sector in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and across the country.
The development of the biopharmaceutical industry will bring more hope and benefit a vast number of people, said Meng Hao, deputy secretary general of the Guangzhou municipal government.
To this end, the city government will establish a 150 billion yuan or about US$21bil industrial investment fund to promote cooperation between major financial investment companies and local investment institutions, with a focus on investing in the biomedicine sector, Meng said.
Meng made the remarks at a news conference on promoting Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry on Monday.
Guangzhou has a population of nearly 24 million. It is the most populous city in the GBA, which includes nine Guangdong cities as well as Hong Kong and Macao.
The southern metropolis has about 6,800 registered medical and health institutions, including 47 major hospitals and eight national and regional medical centres.
“In the first half of this year, more than 93 million patient visits had been recorded in the city’s medical institutions, and the abundant medical resources provide broad space for the transformation of achievements and market application of biopharmaceutical enterprises,” she said.
Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry is in the top tier in the country, and the city has more than 6,500 biopharmaceutical and related enterprises, including 12 Fortune Global 500 companies, 23 listed companies and over 1,000 high-tech enterprises.
These have formed biopharmaceutical industrial clusters that are playing an increasingly important role in the development of Guangzhou’s pillar industry, said Meng.
The city will accord priority to the development of four major industries – biopharmaceuticals, medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and high-end medical apparatus and instruments.
It will also try to construct a number of key state laboratories, industrial innovation centres, manufacturing innovation centres and national engineering technology centres in the next five years, said Meng.
Guangzhou will accelerate the construction of industrial parks and zones for biopharmaceutical and related industries in the following months, she added.
Zhang Yi, deputy director and spokeswoman of the Guangzhou Health Commission, said the commission unveiled a series of measures in September to promote the high-quality development of innovative medical devices and support their clinical application.
“The new measures aim to promote and accelerate innovation in the biopharmaceutical industry and help develop new quality productive forces,” she said.
“Meanwhile, the commission encourages research and development personnel from pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers to connect with clinical experts in medical institutions to further improve the mechanism of medical engineering integration, collaborative innovation and information exchange through establishing clinical research beds in medical institutions and conducting clinical trials of medicines,” she said.
The commission will further promote the application of innovative medicines and medical devices in hospital admissions, said Zhang. — China Daily/ANN
