Harbin gears up for biological medicine base

Harbin is embarking on a new development round of "industry cluster" and working to build itself into a mature biological medicine base.

The city has set the following three years as the target period to realize the "industry development goal" of building a complete biological pharmaceuticals industry chain with an output value reaching 100 billion yuan ($14.97 billion).

This involves achieving the gross incomes of the biological pharmaceuticals industry at 60 billion yuan, 80 billion yuan in 2017 and 2018 respectively, and the industry's output value aims to surpass 100 billion yuan by the end of 2019. Also, the average annual growth rate should not be lower than 25.9 percent.

The goal was proposed by Harbin at the press conference on promotion of its biological pharmaceuticals industry held in Beijing on Aug 8.

Biological pharmaceuticals industry in Harbin, along with the city’s green food and tourism industries, has taken a strong growth momentum in recent years; and Harbin has a solid industrial foundation of biological medicine research and manufacturing.

Currently, Harbin has several industry clusters covering chemical medicine, traditional Chinese medicine and bio-pharmaceuticals. An industrial chain involving research and development, production, inspection and testing, as well as sales, is gradually taking shape in the city.

Due to strong policy support from the local government and scientific research investment from key pharmaceutical businesses, currently, Harbin has 50 independent intellectual property rights and 111 patented technologies, enabling the city to produce 24 types of dosage forms and over 1,000 biological pharmaceutical products.

To further boost the development of local biological pharmaceuticals industry, Harbin will carry out the “1+N” strategy.

“1” refers to a representative industry cluster, namely the Limin Medicine Industrial Park in Harbin New Area. With a total area of 20 square kilometers, the industrial park has already finished its first phase. It now houses over 100 medicine and supporting businesses, and more well-known pharmaceutical companies have showed their interests in settling in, including China National Pharmaceutical Group Corporation (Sinopharm)——the largest Chinese medical and healthcare group in China; and Shanghai-headquartered Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co.

Limin Medicine Industrial Park is expected to become a driving force of medicine production while prioritizing the application of high-end biological pharmaceutical technology.

“N” stands for the medicine production parks neighboring Limin Medicine Industrial Park, which includes Hanan Industry New City, Songbei Science and Technology Innovation City, and Niujia Industrial Park. These industrial parks will take advantage of the industry agglomeration effect in the region to boost industry development.

To create a sounder business environment, Harbin will also continue to launch more preferential policies to attract businesses and introduce talents, which include providing bonuses, funds, subsidies and loans to guarantee the research and development of technologies, cutting the rent of land use; and making household registration convenient, and improving children’s school attendance and spouse's employment guidance.