The irresistible lure of success draws top biopharma players

Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone seen as springboard for metropolis of Shanghai

Shanghai Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone - formerly the Shanghai Hi-Tech Development Zone - has positioned itself as the key springboard for the city to undertake its world-class biopharma business activities.

In its more than two decades of development, the zone has expanded vigorously from a single park to 22 parks covering 531 square kilometers and all of Shanghai's districts.

Its biopharmaceutical business activities include a manufacturing center, a research and development center, and an Asia Pacific medical service center.

It is one of the country's biggest biopharma zones that has the most concentrated R&D institutions.

Zhangjiang is also one of the biopharma zones that has claimed the most innovative achievements.

That's according to a report released by the Biotechnology Center at the Ministry of Science and Technology in September.

It found that the overall competitiveness of the biopharma industry in the Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Zone rated No 2 in China, only behind the Zhongguancun zone in Beijing.

Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech district was founded in July 1992.

In 2011 it got approval from the State Council, China's Cabinet, to be a national innovation demonstration zone, which marked its move to a new development stage, at which point it began working to develop an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem, emerging industries, talented people from around the world, and reform policies.

Now, the zone says, it is behind Shanghai's innovation and reforms and building a global science and technology center.

In the past 20 years, Zhangjiang has gradually formed biopharm innovation parks that cover integrated institutions of higher learning, R&D institutions and enterprises, and services providers.

The various parks in the zone not only have strong competitiveness in environmental protection and industrial development, but also have strong competitiveness in technology and human resources, according to the zone's officials.

Branch parks

Last year, most parks in the zone witnessed rapid development in the biopharma industry.

In expanding into that sector, parks in the zone cover different types of functions according to their development levels.

The first type is the comprehensive biomedical parks.

These include the Zhangjiang Core Park, Minhang Park and Caohejing Park, which have relatively complete industrial chain, and are surrounded by leading research institutes and industrial development platforms.

Many leading biomedical companies, venture capital enterprises, and mature biomedicine industrial clusters are located in the three integrated biomedical parks, ensuring stable economic growth and businesses profits.

A raft of big pharmaceutical manufacturing groups are located in the Zhangjiang Core Park, which has a relatively complete industry ecological chain and a stronger industrial base.

In addition, Minhang Park has brought together medium and large-pharma manufacturers, such as Shanghai Hengrui Pharmaceutical Co Ltd.

The second type of industrial parks in Zhangjiang are enterprise-driven parks, including Fengxian Park, Putuo Park and Jiading Park.

Compared with the comprehensive biomedical parks, the enterprise-driven parks have relatively smaller R&D institutions.

Venture capital investments in the parks is also less active than that in the comprehensive parks. Fengxian Park has gathered large businesses such as NU Skin, Shanghai Ley's Pharmaceutical Co Ltd and Shanghai RAAS blood products Co Ltd, whose total annual operating revenue from the companies is just behind that of the Core Park.

The third type are the parks that focus on providing biomedical services.

The most typical of these is Xuhui Park, which has abundant resources in biomedical innovation and top industrial facilities, which have attracted the headquarters of many healthcare services providers such as Quintiles and MSD.

Officials said Zhangjiang Core Park is the biggest park in the zone by gross industrial output value.

It has also recorded the largest annual operating revenues and profits.

Officials added that the main biomedical companies in Zhangjiang Core Park, Jinqiao Park, Caohejing Park, Jiading Park and Baoshan Park have grown their business annually by more than 10 percent.

That's much faster that those companies in the other parks of the zone that have stronger services, such as Qingpu Park, Putuo Park, Jinshan Park and Xuhui Park.

The word is that the core park is leading the biopharma industry in Zhangjiang demonstration zone.

Its industrial output, operating income, total profits, number of employees and the number of enterprises headed all the parks in the zone.

A lot of multinational pharma companies have located in the Zhangjiang Core Park, such as Shanghai Roche Pharmaceutical Co Ltd, Shanghai Haini Pharmaceutical Co Ltd and Siemens Shanghai Medical Equipment Ltd.

Among the park's top 10 businesses that recorded the highest operating revenue last year, five were foreign-invested companies.

In addition to biomedicine, which was one of the dominant industries in the park, other industries - such as the information technology, cultural creativity and low-carbon environment sectors - have also enjoyed strong development.

The biomedical industry involves R&D of new drugs, drug screening, clinical research and product launches.

To date, about 230 new drugs have been researched in the cork park and about 50 have obtained new drug certificates.

The core park also has resources for innovation.

About 20 national-level R&D centers have clustered in the park, including the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica and the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility.

More than 40 industrial services platforms, such as the Shanghai R&D Center for Polymer Materials and Shanghai Bio Chip, have also located themselves in the park.

The Zhangjiang Core Park plans to introduce domestic and foreign biomedical venture capital institutions. These are expected to promote the development of new biopharma innovation groups and startups.

The core park has built some innovation incubation bases which can serve high-tech industries in such areas as IT, health, artificial intelligence and intelligent hardware.

They can also provide various financial services to startups and promote their growth.

(China Daily 12/06/2017 page14)