The proposed Pharmaceutical Innovation Center, expected to offer a range of services relating to medical R&D and testing for businesses in the area.

Work commenced at the end of last month on a new bio-pharmaceutical industrial park, part of an initiative by the Beijing Economic and Technological Development Area (BDA) to attract 100 new businesses to the zone. BDA, also known as Beijing's e-Town, is in the southern suburb of Yizhuang.

Once completed, the park will include labs dedicated to every stage of biomedical research and development (R&D), including new medicine R&D centers, animal experiment centers, instrument testing centers, equipment supply centers and sterilization centers. It is seen as a key link - and one with huge potential - in the BDA's medical industrial chain.

BDA, also known as the Yizhuang Development Area, has long had the reputation of being China's "pharmaceutical valley", with bioengineering and pharmaceutical research as one of its four major industries. In the first quarter of this year, the sales revenue from bioengineering and pharmaceutical companies in the BDA accounted for 45.2 percent of the total amount generated by the industry in the whole of Beijing.

A number of Fortune 500 companies in this sector have now opened operations within the BDA, including Bayer Healthcare of Germany, GE Healthcare of the United States, and Japan's Shimadzu Corporation and Daiichi Pharmaceutical.

Four national-level biomedical research centers are also located in the BDA, including the National 863 Project R&D Base of the Viral Gene Vector (founded by Vector Gene Technology Co Ltd), the Chinese National Human Genome Center in Beijing, part of SinoGenoMax Co Ltd, the National Virus Bio-tech Engineering Research Center Beijing Kawin Bio-Tech Co Ltd, and the National New Vaccine Engineering Research Center, funded by Beijing Vigoo Biological Co Ltd.

The BDA has already established a business cluster in the bioengineering and new medicine field and has now created four sub-industries - the medical equipment manufacturing industry, the chemical medicine and traditional Chinese medicine manufacturing industry, the biomedicine research, development and manufacturing industry and the medical outsourcing service.

The bio-pharmaceutical park, where work commenced in Yizhuang last month. Once completed it is scheduled to attract 100 new pharmaceutical enterprises from home and abroad.

Booming industry

Due to the low production cost and the established safety of biomedicines, compared with chemical medicines, the biomedicine sector is seen as having great potential in both the domestic and global markets.

Statistics show that, since the 1990s, the global sales volume of biomedicines has experienced an average annual increase of more than 30 percent, significantly higher than the annual growth rate of the global pharmaceutical industry, currently rated at less than 10 percent.

It is estimated that by 2010, the global biomedicine market will be worth some $150 billion, 10 times the figure it was valued at in 1997. The sales volume of biomedicine will account for more than 25 percent of the whole pharmaceutical industry in 2010, far in excess of its 1995 figure of just four percent.

Commenting on the prospects for the biomedical industry, Zhao Xinxin, vice director of the BDA administrative committee, said, "The next 20 years will witness a rapid growth in the global biomedicine industry, in a similar fashion to that of the IT industry during the 1990s."

In line with the rapid development of the biomedical industry, the increasing number of biopharmaceutical companies looking to establish themselves within the BDA has created an urgent need for more laboratory facilities and business premises.

The new bio pharmaceutical industrial park has been designed to meet these rising demands. It is also intended to boost its biochemical industrial chain and business cluster and confirm the industry as new source of economic growth.

Zhao said: "The government should help relocate and integrate these resources to provide a better and more cost-effective environment for biomedicine businesses, especially as the whole industry is set for dramatic growth. A positive environment will help each business find appropriate partners in both the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain. We can also attract talented people in R&D and management as part of the process."

Zhang Boxu, a director of the BDA administrative committee, also sees the development as a key way of combating the global financial crisis, with building the new park and improving the BDA's biomedicine industrial chain a key tenet of the area's forward development plan.

An artist's impression of the proposed interior of a major new pharmaceutical R&D facility in Yizhuang.

Public service platform

According to Zhao, all biomedical companies are now faced with one common problem - the high cost of biomedical R&D and its subsequent lengthy testing period.

Addressing the problem, he said: "A standard lab usually costs more than 1 million yuan, but this is not a necessary investment for every business, especially small and medium-sized ones. Medical testing equipment is also very expensive, and it is often quickly redundant if purchased by a company producing a limited variety of products.

"A biomedicine R&D facility also needs a high level of staffing and equipment, frequently in excess of that affordable by an individual company. A freely-available research outsourcing service platform will undoubtedly prove the solution to many of these problems."

According to Chi Yu, deputy director of BDA's industry assistance bureau, building such a facility will meet the shared needs of many biomedical companies, allowing them to outsource professional services and focus on their core business.

He said: "The cost and time spent on developing new pharmaceutical products can be reduced by between 20 an 30 percent."

The BDA has been working on the implementation of its biomedical outsourcing platform since 2007. The first phase of the project has now been completed and become operational. It is currently providing a number of specialist services, including DNA sequencing and analysis, DNA chip R&D and the third party manufacture of biomedicines.

As an integral part of its offer, the new bio-pharmaceutical industrial park will provide support for new pharmaceutical product development, as well as technological support. It will feature both large-scale and small-scale labs, in order to meet the differing needs of its client base.

New medicine base