Yantai sees bright future in pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry of Yantai, a coastal city in East China's Shandong province, has seen robust development. Its total revenue is expected to exceed 100 billion yuan ($15.47 billion) by the end of 2020 and 120 billion yuan in 2021, according to officials.

Technical innovation plays a key role in promoting the development of the city's pharmaceutical industry, and some leading companies such as Luye Pharma Group, RemeGen Group, and Yantai Zhenghai Bio-tech Co have made breakthroughs in independently developing products.

RemeGen has made breakthrough in clinical trials of a new drug to treat lupus and made its debut on a billboard-sized screen in New York's Times Square on Dec 2, 2019. The drug Telitacicept has been proven to be effective in treating systemic lupus, rheumatoid arthritis, and autoimmune diseases.

Yantai is home to four demonstration enterprises included in the national comprehensive R&D technological platform for new medicine, a national key laboratory, and a national engineering laboratory.

The Yantai Yeda International Biomedical Innovation Incubation Center, which has received 610 million yuan in investment, began operating in June 2020.

The city has also trained or recruited 83 biomedical professionals at or above the provincial level and more than 60 doctors with rich experience in R&D and production management.

Officials said that the local government will issue supporting policies in 2021 to attract more talent and build innovative platforms to facilitate the development of the pharmaceutical industry.