Huangpu eyes 100b-yuan biological innovation industrial cluster

Guangzhou's Huangpu district will foster a biological innovation industrial cluster of more than 100 billion yuan ($15 billion) during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period (2021-25).

With a solid industrial foundation, it is now home to more than 1,000 biomedical enterprises, of which 325 are in high-technology fields, and 15 are listed (excluding those listed on China's National Equities Exchange and Quotations, also known as the "New Third Board").

Many local enterprises had a showy performance last year. Daan Gene, for example, reported a net profit of 2.45 billion yuan in 2020, up 2556.8 percent year-on-year. Its operating revenue also grew by 386.35 percent to 5.34 billion yuan.

KingMed Diagnostics was estimated to have realized a net profit of 1.4 billion yuan to 1.56 billion yuan in 2020 with a year-on-year increase of 247.97 percent to 287.74 percent.

Such achievements cannot be set apart from local policy support. The district launched 10 recent supportive policies for the high-quality development of the bio-pharmaceutical industry, targeting breakthroughs in innovation, business environment, financial support and recruitment of professionals, among other goals.

Construction of industrial projects that play a leading role in the local bio-pharmaceutical industry will receive a subsidy of up to 30 percent of their fixed-asset investment. The maximum reward for a single project can reach 500 million yuan, which is among the most generous in the country.

Rendering of the Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory (Bioland Laboratory).

Of Huangpu's key projects construction plan for 2021, 21 are from the biomedicine, health and medical treatment sectors. The district will push forward the construction of biomedical infrastructure such as Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory (Bioland Laboratory), a large-scale scientific research facility that will look at human cell lineage, and a nanotechnology biosafety center.

A number of projects of local heavyweight enterprises also herald progress. The R&D and production base of Hengrui Medicine will come under construction this year, while construction of BeiGene's southern research center will be advanced.

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