People attend the 5th Bio-Pharm (Hangzhou) Innovation Conference, which was held in Qiantang New Area on Sept 29. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

Qiantang New Area in Hangzhou, East China's Zhejiang province aims to become a global innovation center for biomedicine.

To achieve this goal, Qiantang need to make full use of the advantages of it being located in Hangzhou and Zhejiang to forge a competitiveness with its unique features, according to experts attending the 5th Bio-Pharm (Hangzhou) Innovation Conference that was held recently in Qiantang New Area.

Zhejiang has seen prosperous and concentrated development of the biopharmaceutical industry in Qiantang, Shaoxing, and Taizhou. Many participating experts believe that Qiantang should consider creating a cross-regional industrial value chain with the other two cities, forming a world-class manufacturing cluster.

"The biopharmaceutical industry is characterized by long development cycles and heavy investment," said Ma Dawei, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. "A reasonable division of labor can greatly improve efficiency. For example, Qiantang can focus on R&D, while Shaoxing on manufacturing."

The Institute of Basic Medicine and Cancer of the Chinese Academy of Science in Qiantang New Area. [Photo/zj.zjol.com.cn]

Ding Shufeng, director of the Zhejiang Academy of Commerce, said that Qiantang can also strive for more favorable policies to allow foreign capital to be invested in healthcare, health management, and other professional medical institutions as the Hangzhou comprehensive bonded zone is located within Qiantang New Area.

After years of development, Qiantang has established a whole biopharmaceutical industrial chain featuring preclinical studies and clinical tests, making it more attractive to high-level professionals.

In 2020, it housed more than 1,500 bio-pharmaceutical companies, generating 40 billion yuan ($6.21 billion) in revenue. However, experts say that there is still a long way to go before Qiantang reaches its target of being a global innovation center for biomedicine, pointing to the biomedical revenues of Pharma Valley in Shanghai and Suzhou Industrial Park amounting to 84.91 billion yuan and 100 billion yuan respectively in comparison.