Forum promotes regional biomedicine industry development

The Taihu (Mashan) Life Science and Healthcare Forum opened in grand style on April 21 at the Taihu National Tourist Resort in Mashan, Wuxi's Binhu district, offering experience and advice for local development of the biomedicine industry.

Themed around "Biopharmaceutical and Financial Innovation", the forum was designed with keynote speeches, high-level talks and sub-forums to support academic exchanges, policy research and financial venture cooperation, in a bid to build up a platform for research, development and innovation of Wuxi's biopharmaceutical industry. Once established, the platform will offer venture capital services in the industry as well as international exchanges and cooperation.

The Taihu (Mashan) Life Science and Healthcare Forum opens on April 21 at the Taihu National Tourist Resort in Mashan, Wuxi's Binhu district. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The opening ceremony was attended by nearly 1,000 distinguished guests from home and abroad, including government officials, academicians, and representatives from research institutes, pharmaceutical companies and institutional investors.

The biomedical industry is a dynamic emerging industry in the contemporary world, and it will be a hot field of future international industrial competition.

Sun Xianze, president of the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association, said that Wuxi has been cultivating the most promising strategic emerging industry in recent years with keen foresight and has formed a development environment of industrial aggregation, perfected functions and excellent service.

Sun added that Wuxi's biomedical industry now is in the fast lane. He hoped that Wuxi would seize the cooperation opportunity generated by the forum and drive the upgrading of the industry.

Huang Qin, acting mayor of Wuxi, said that the city is committed to becoming a sample city of "Healthy China" by 2030. Wuxi will list the biopharmaceutical industry as one of the strategic emerging industries and support its development, introducing more state-of-the-art biomedical enterprises and key projects and enhancing the competitiveness of local biological medicine bases.

In 2016 the Chinese government released "Healthy China 2030", a blueprint that covers areas such as public health services, the medical industry, and food and drug safety, with the aim of improving the health of the Chinese people.

Huang said that the forum, which gathered academic authorities, well-known experts and excellent enterprises in the field of bio-medicine from China and elsewhere, would offer more opportunities for the city's development of the bio-medicine industry.

Industrial projects are signed during the opening ceremony of the Taihu (Mashan) Life Science and Healthcare Forum in Mashan, Wuxi's Binhu district, April 21, 2018. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Several industrial projects were signed during the opening ceremony. The development plans of Mashan International Health Tourism Island were also released.

The two-day event was jointly organized by the Chinese Pharmaceutical Association, the Service Center for the Enterprise Innovation of China Association for Science and Technology, the Jiangsu Association for Science and Technology and the Jiangsu Food and Drug Administration.

Located near Taihu Lake, picturesque Mashan town provides a solid foundation for the development of the biopharmaceutical industry. It is home to more than 160 enterprises in that field, including Pfizer, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, Fresenius Kabi SSPC, Asia's largest manufacturer of intestinal nutrient solutions, and WuXi AppTec, a leading global contract research outsource provider. Mashan has formed a complete industry chain from drug discovery, R&D and production to validation.