Shanghai supports drug sector
15/9/2003 18:05
The Shanghai government will invest more than 70 million yuan
(US$8.4 million) annually over at least the next two years to support the
development of the State-Shanghai Bio-Pharmaceutical Industrial Base in the
city's Pudong New Area, city officials said over the weekend.
The
government hopes the bio-pharmaceutical industrial base, established in 1996 at
Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Park, will become a "drug valley" and produce more
than 50 billion yuan worth of biotechnology and pharmaceuticals annually by
2007.
"Shanghai will increase investment in the industrial base to make
it one of the leading bio-pharmaceutical research centers in the Asia-Pacific
region, and a world-level manufacturing center for bio-pharmaceutical products,"
Mayor Han Zheng said at a conference on Saturday.
"In 2007, companies in
the Pudong base will account for 12 percent of the country's total, and output
of new drugs should account for more than 40 percent of China's total," the
mayor said.
Last year, more than 280 pharmaceutical companies in the city
generated 22.2 billion yuan in sales, up 18 percent from a year ago. Their
output accounted for 9 percent of the country's total. This year, Shanghai plans
to invest 70.2 million yuan in various research projects conducted at the
base.
Projects include a traditional Chinese medicine innovation park,
which is expected to open early next year, and a specialized bio-pharmaceutical
incubator.
In addition, the city has invested 80 million yuan to support
the research and development of new drugs and technologies, as well as
supporting small bio-pharm companies.
The base is busy inviting world
level bio-pharm companies to set up research and development centers and move
manufacturing facilities there to upgrade the local industry.
Last year,
US-based Lily Pharm-aceutical Co, South Korea's SK Pharm-aceutical and Hong
Kong-based Hutch-ison Whampoa Pharmaceutical set up research centers in the
Pudong base.
Sk pharmaceutical and Hutchison Whampoa will emphasize
research on the modernization of traditional Chinese medicines.
To date,
the base is home to four of the world's top 20 drugmakers - Sankyo
Pharmaceutical, Hoffmann-La Roche Inc, GlaxoSmithKline and Boehringer Ingelheim
- which have invested a combined US$169.6 million in the city.
During the
first half of this year, companies located at the bio-pharm base generated 1.65
billion yuan in sales, up 45 percent from a year earlier.
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