Shanghai's Pudong maps blueprint for biomedical industry

Shanghai's Pudong New Area has rolled out a blueprint to boost the burgeoning biomedical industry, aiming for a manufacturing industrial output and high-tech service industry revenue of 100 billion yuan ($14.88 billion) by 2020, local media reported on April 2.

According to the plan, four industrial bases with a total area of nearly 10 square kilometers are planned.

One of the bases, Zhangjiang Innovative Medicine Industrial Base, covers an area of three square kilometers and will focus on the industrialization of innovative drug technology achievements and high-end manufacturing.

Pudong is expected to build an internationally influential industrial cluster and hotbed for innovative biomedical development by 2025.

After more than 20 years of development, Pudong’s biomedical industry has made significant headway in the R&D of new drugs. The four new industrial bases are designed to further advance the transformation of innovative biomedical achievements, said Tang Shiqing, director of the Pudong Commission of Technology and Economy.

In 2018, biomedical companies in the special district reported 67.2 billion yuan in overall industrial output value and service revenue, a year-on-year increase of 12.7 percent. Biomedical manufacturing enterprises above the scale contributed 54.8 billion yuan of that sector's overall manufacturing industrial output value in Pudong last year.

Last year, Pudong also made a breakthrough in the innovative development of new drugs. The area currently has more than 60 drugs in Phase II and III clinical trials. In 2018, about 30 new drugs began clinical trials, demonstrating the strength of Zhangjiang Laboratories in drug development.

Pudong is also currently equipped with six newly approved innovative medical devices, accounting for 11 percent of the national total.