Hangzhou is the capital of Zhejiang province on the eastern coast of China. It is a city classically known for its natural environment and locations such as the Grand Canal and West Lake. However, Hangzhou is also a bustling commercial center and industrial city. One of the industries being developed within the city is medicine.

Gathering high-quality corporate resources

Hangzhou Biopharma Town has a planned construction area of 3.4 square kilometers. The Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone is currently building two areas: one is an “Eastern Hangzhou Pharma Port Town” dominated by biotechnology and with clusters of innovative pharmaceutical industries. “. As a core area within the Chinese high-tech biomedical industrial base, a provincial biomedical technology and trade innovation base, and a provincial “medical port town”, the zone has a “one hub” + “three functional areas”. Pharmaceutical biotechnology, biomedical engineering, and major disease pharmacy are major industry directions, with the goal to achieve intensive development of the biomedical health industry within 3-5 years.

With an output value of more than RMB 50 billion, Hangzhou Biopharma Town has gathered seven of the world’s top ten pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer, Merck, Gilead, Abbott, Eli Lilly, and Bayer. It also has attracted Berry Genomics, HJB, Fountain Medical Development Ltd, Canwell, Hangzhou DAC Biotech, Jiuyuan Gene, Heze Pharmaceutical and other key enterprises to land in Hangzhou.

The second zone is the “Daiso Youth Town” built at Xiasha University City, including Singapore Science Park, and Chinese incubators. With a development theme of “Mass Entrepreneurship, Mass Innovation”, the town is committed to building an entrepreneurial innovation ecosystem supported by talent, innovation, industrialization, investment, and service. It strives to become a regional industry-university-research institute, a leading area for collaborative innovation, and a gathering place for talent and entrepreneurship in well-known universities both in China and abroad.

Hangzhou Biopharma Town has become a base for Hangzhou’s biomedical industry

In 2018, the Hangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone was officially awarded the title of “Hangzhou Biopharma Town” by the municipal government. It has now gathered more than 800 biomedical companies of various types, with an annual output value of over RMB 30 billion. It won the “National Demonstration Base for Innovation” and was the only Demonstration Base for Innovation and Innovation in Zhejiang Province commended by the State Council. It also won the “National Demonstration Development Zone for Transformation and Improvement within the Yangtze River Economic Belt”, the “National High-tech Industrial Base Core for Bioindustry”, the “National Import and Export Biomedicine (Biological Products) Quality and Safety Demonstration Zone”, and other awards.

Also in 2018, more than 150 new pharmaceutical companies were established in Hangzhou Biopharma Town. At present, the scale of output in the town has accounted for 50% of the output for Hangzhou’s biomedicine. Furthermore, the biomedical industry is an important part of the “1+6” industrial cluster built by Hangzhou during the 13th Five-Year Plan.

Development service center

The Hangzhou Biopharma Town Development Service Center was established to take the lead in formulating a development plan, spatial layout planning, and industrial support policies of the new area’s biomedical industry, as well as undertaking the creation, development and construction of the town, investment promotion, and corporate services. The specific responsibilities of Hangzhou Biopharma Town Development Service Center, Economic Development Technology Bureau, Talent Bureau and other relevant departments are led by the Qiantang New District Biomedical Industry Development Leading Group Office.

Policy development

In 2018, the General Office of the Hangzhou Municipal People’s Government issued the “Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Innovative Development of the Hangzhou Biopharmaceutical Industry”, proposing to build a high-end biomedical industry base around “one core, three functional areas”. “One core” means to take the Hangzhou Economic Development Zone as the core, improve “government, industry, university, research and application” collaborative innovation, accelerate the completion of new drug research and development, develop public platform services, and create the city with the most complete elements and the fastest development speed.

Build a “six-chain” service ecology and create a leading business and industrial environment

During the construction of Hangzhou Biopharma Town, the “six chains” of industry, innovation, talent, ecology, finance, and services were built into the fields of biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and life science engineering to promote the development of ecological integration.

For example, in the ecological link, WuXi AppTec and other major companies built five major platforms including a biological antibody platform, a gene editing and cell therapy platform, ab innovative small molecule drug platform and animal experiment center, a clinical experiment center, and the Hangzhou Biopharma Town Public Service Platform. There are also innovative institutions such as Zhejiang University (Hangzhou) Institute of Innovative Medicine, Zhejiang Artificial Intelligence New Drug Creation Research Center, Hangzhou Biomedical Innovation Research Center, and others, in the form of public services that guide entrepreneurship and innovation from the supply side.

In terms of financial chain innovation, the Zhejiang Provincial Equity Exchange Center and Zhejiang Biomedical Board have been built. They are in in-depth collaboration with well-known domestic Chinese and foreign institutions such as Kaitai Capital and Eli Lilly Asia Fund to help entrepreneurs and innovators solve funding problems. In the service chain, the goal is to provide meticulous and considerate services for startups.

In addition, in order to promote the development of Hangzhou Biopharma Town, the Zhejiang Food and Drug Administration has launched several practical measures in recent years, such as optimizing vertical connections, horizontal connections, and internal processes; reforming the review and approval system; and realizing all drug approval items to provide various policy support for pharmaceutical companies.

The integration of “BT+IT” and the continuous improvement of the digital service ecosystem

Hangzhou Biopharma Town screens third-party service agencies and is building a digital industry command platform, an industry map, an innovative service platform to allocate innovation and element resources, improve operations and service capabilities, and accelerate the industrialization of scientific research results. At present, the park’s big data projects have reached a leading level in the province and have become rated first-class in China. With the continuous improvement of the digital ecology of the park, Hangzhou Biopharma Town is rapidly growing, with an average rate of one new biopharmaceutical company every day, by promoting the construction of industrial clusters. In 2018, Hangzhou Biopharma Town received a total of 78 drug approvals and 436 listed medical devices.