The annually held Startup in Shanghai International Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition has been launched lately for 2018 for its seventh year. Statistics showed that a total of 6250 enterprises have applied for the small & micro enterprise group—a figure 4.3% higher than that of last year. Among them, more than 60% were founded within 5 years while nearly 70% of them have a revenue less than 5 million yuan.

To encourage more startup enterprises to participate, an innovation fund of 600 million yuan will be earmarked for this year’s Competition, while those who have received project initiation support will also get financial support at district level. The steering committee for the Competition will organize a series of activities before, during and after the Competition, including such services as Competition training, policy training, technology and finance, specialized technologies and publicity.

At the opening ceremony, those startup teams who had come to the fore in previous competitions shared their experience. After success in the competitions, will their success in the market follow in the wake?

National Champion: moving innovative anti-cancer drugs to the stage of clinical development.

EpimAb Biotherapeutics is a technology innovation startup founded just two years ago. They boast research and development of innovative antibody-based drugs through their self-developed bispecific antibody technology platform. Their products are targeted at the treatment for malignant tumors. Last year their team were admitted as contestants of the Startup in Shanghai Competition Pudong Division, then advanced to the National Startup Competition on behalf of Shanghai and finally won the national championship for Pharmaceuticals Startup Group. They are now working on the first phase clinical trial for their first anti-tumor drug EMB-01, collaborating with first-tier pharmaceutical companies both home and abroad.

Recently, Shanghai firms have shown great zest for this Competition and the number of participants in Shanghai ranked first in the country.