Upcoming health forum attracts global attention

The eastern coastal city of Qingdao is bathed in the morning sun. [Photo/iqilu.com]

The first Global Health Forum of the Boao Forum for Asia will be held in Qingdao, Shandong province from June 10-12. The preparation work is currently in progress.

The three-day international event includes the opening ceremony, sub-forums, roadshows for innovative projects, and the Global Health Exposition.

More than 100 experts and industry elites from home and abroad, including Nobel Prize winners, have confirmed their participation in the forum.

The event is attracting attention across China and even the world due to its innovative, authoritative, and cutting-edge features.

One of its highlights is the roadshows for innovative projects on the theme of biomedicine, healthcare, medical devices, and medical services.

China's healthcare market is huge. According to Luo Xielong, executive director of the forum's organizing committee, China's healthcare market was valued at 4 trillion yuan ($595 billion) in 2015, and that figure is expected to reach 8 and 16 trillion yuan respectively in 2020 and 2030.

"Chinese enterprises are not short of productivity, markets, capital or policies. What they lack is innovative projects that can be truly transformed into core competitiveness," Luo said.

"Healthcare enterprises need transformation. The market competition is gradually shifting from product competition and channel competition to project competition. Mastering core technologies will help enterprises remain strong in the market."

The innovative projects that will be unveiled at the forum are excellent domestic and overseas projects with great market potential. They were introduced by the organizing committee based on the comprehensive research on the current bio-pharmaceutical industry. The projects have passed multiple tests and many of them have developed clinical stages.

The organizing committee hopes to introduce global innovative projects to industrial parks, enterprises, and institutions in Qingdao, Shandong province, and even the whole country through roadshows to facilitate the implementation of the projects and promote the development of the biomedical and healthcare industries, as well as make scientific and technological innovation the core competitiveness of enterprises.

Luo said that national leaders, senior officials from the World Health Organization, and ministers of state-level health authorities will attend the forum.

Luo Xielong, executive director of the forum's organizing committee. [Photo/qdqss.cn]

Experts and members of the National Health Commission, the State Administration for Market Regulation, the National Medical Products Administration, the National Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and other relevant departments will conduct discussions at the forum to explore the direction of China's medical reform and further reach an ideological consensus at the theoretical and practical levels.

In the past ten years, China's new medical reform policies have continued to advance. The establishment of a modern hospital management system and the promotion of comprehensive reform of public hospitals have become important tasks in deepening the reform of the medical and health system.

The organizing committee expects that by participating in the forum, hospital administrators can grasp the trends in policy development more clearly and accurately. By acquiring this information, they will be able to make informed decisions regarding hospital reform, as well as development and policy formulation with a broader vision and more accurate insights.

Dame Sally Davies, UK's Chief Medical Office, Ilona Kickbush, professor at Geneva's Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and Katie Dain, CEO of the Non-Communicable Disease Alliance, will host key topics at the sub-forums.

Former Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, former Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova, Vice Chairman of the Gates Foundation Chris Elisa, and representatives from international organizations such as the World Intellectual Property Organization, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, and the WHO Western Pacific Region will also attend the forum as important guests.

The participation of Yusuke Nakamura and Koichi Tanaka, who are influential experts in Japan and across the world, will not only enhance the authority and professionalism of the forum in the field of precision medicine, but also attract the attention of domestic and foreign professionals.

A number of Japanese companies have signed up for the forum and have expressed excitement to obtaining the latest developments and related results in research on immunotherapy.