Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Zhang Yuqi
Image source: Picture Worm Creative
"Build a medical device biomedical industrial park in the Greater Bay Area and create a world-class medical device industry ecology. ”
On the side of the road at Zhuhai Harbor No. 8 Greater Bay Area Medical Device and Biomedical Industrial Park (hereinafter referred to as the "Greater Bay Area Medical Industrial Park"), signboards with similar slogans can be seen everywhere. Behind the signboard, more than 10 high-standard factories have risen from the ground, and this industrial park covering an area of about 150,000 square meters and a total construction area of about 600,000 square meters has gradually taken shape.
During the Ching Ming Festival holiday, the Greater Bay Area Medical Industrial Park was sparsely populated. However, according to the official WeChat public account of Zhuhai High-tech Zone, the Greater Bay Area Medical Industrial Park will be completed and delivered in June this year, and as of the end of March, there are nearly 30 projects that the park intends to sign and negotiate.
Not only Zhuhai, but also Shijiazhuang, Luzhou and other non-first-tier cities are also in full swing to build biomedical industrial parks, striving to build the biomedical industry into a new engine of local economic development. Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing and other super first-tier cities are also promoting the construction of multiple biomedical industrial parks in the region. Taking Shenzhen as an example, according to a news released on the official website of the People's Government of Pingshan District, Shenzhen at the beginning of 2023, there are 29 biomedicine-related industrial parks in Shenzhen, and 14 parks in Pingshan District alone, accounting for about 1/2 of the city.
Recently, the governments of Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and other places have successively issued support policies for the high-quality development of innovative drugs and innovative medical devices.
However, a number of pharmaceutical industry veterans admitted to Times Finance that at present, the industrial park is rapidly expanding and building, and various regions are trying their best to attract investment, but this does not mean that the process is smooth and the enterprises are settled quickly, but it shows that the competition for enterprises in various places has become more intense, and the homogeneous competition is more serious.
"Now that more and more industrial parks are being built, the competition for investment is becoming more and more fierce compared with last year. Song Yun, an investor in the pharmaceutical industry, said to Times Finance.
Zhou Jie, an investment attraction in an industrial park in a first-tier city, also told Times Finance, "The overall environment is not good at present, and enterprises are not thinking about expansion, but how to open up sources and reduce expenditure, which also increases the difficulty of our investment promotion." ”
Policy support has been increased in many places, and the spring of innovative drugs is coming?
This year's government work report (hereinafter referred to as the "report") mentions "innovative drugs" for the first time, clearly pointing out that it is necessary to accelerate the development of cutting-edge emerging innovative drugs and other industries, actively build new growth engines such as biomanufacturing, formulate future industrial development plans, open up new tracks such as life sciences, and create a number of future industry pilot areas. Encourage the development of venture capital and equity investment, and optimize the function of industrial investment funds. Strengthen the overall layout and investment guidance of key industries to prevent overcapacity and low-level redundant construction.
Not only that, a document titled "Implementation Plan for Supporting the Development of Innovative Drugs in the Whole Chain (Draft for Comments)" has recently circulated in the market. After seeing the document, many people in the industry said that if this document is true, it will be very good for the entire pharmaceutical industry.
Soon after the above-mentioned documents were released, a number of local support policies were introduced one after another. On April 7, government departments in Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhuhai and other places issued a number of policies to support the high-quality development of innovative drugs.
Taking the Several Measures to Support the High-quality Development of Innovative Pharmaceuticals in Beijing (2024) (Consultation Draft) (hereinafter referred to as the "Consultation Paper") formulated by 9 departments including the Beijing Municipal Medical Security Bureau as an example, it is the most detailed and urgent. The announcement said that due to the urgency of time, the time for public solicitation of opinions was shortened to 3 working days. At the same time, the above-mentioned "Draft for Comments" also pointed out that in the context of the State Council's approval of the "Work Plan for Supporting Beijing to Deepen the Construction of a Comprehensive Demonstration Zone for the Expansion and Opening-up of the National Service Industry" and Beijing's "Implementation Plan for the Opening up of the Whole Biomedical Industry Chain" and other documents, the "Draft for Comments" aims to accelerate the innovation of the pharmaceutical and health industry, help develop new quality productivity, and meet the needs of the people for disease prevention and treatment.
The Consultation Paper consists of 32 articles in eight parts, including focusing on improving the quality and efficiency of clinical research of innovative pharmaceuticals (4 articles), helping to accelerate the review and approval of innovative drugs and devices (4 articles), vigorously promoting pharmaceutical trade facilitation (3 articles), strengthening the clinical application of innovative drugs (8 articles), striving to expand payment channels for innovative medicines (3 articles), encouraging medical and health data empowerment innovation (5 articles), strengthening investment and financing support for innovative pharmaceutical enterprises (3 articles) and safeguard measures (2 articles).
The "Measures for Promoting the High-quality Development of the Biomedical Industry in Guangzhou Development District (Huangpu District)" shows that for a number of top biomedical projects with disruptive technological innovation breakthroughs and clear application prospects led by masters and strategic scientists with global influence, in the stage of scientific and technological research and development, achievement transformation and industrialization, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the "Several Policies and Measures for Promoting the High-quality Development of the Biomedical Industry in Guangzhou", the city and district will jointly give talent rewards, R&D and industrialization rewards according to the principle of "one thing, one discussion". The maximum support amount is 5 billion yuan, and the support period is up to 5 years.
Located in Huangpu Science City, VectorBuilder is an innovative enterprise with gene delivery technology, providing services throughout the industry chain, including the design, development and optimization of gene delivery solutions, customization of vectors for scientific research, and preparation of vectors for clinical use. Huang Rui, CEO of the company, told Times Finance, "The introduction of policies to support the high-quality development of biomedicine in many places is an extension of the implementation of policies at the national level, and the biomedical industry is also one of the important development directions of new productivity." In recent years, biopharmaceutical financing and listing have encountered some bottlenecks, and the introduction of government policies can give some help to the industry to a certain extent. ”
He also bluntly said that the Huangpu District, where their company is located, has been very convenient in terms of financial fund application, but because innovation also has the cost of trial and error to a certain extent, the government is indeed not easy to discern the prospects of enterprises when screening enterprises in the early stage, so in terms of subsidy policies, phased support projects and post-subsidies have been adopted to support enterprise projects.
Local governments and industrial parks also have their own considerations for the enterprises that have settled down. "In terms of investment and enterprise landing, local governments also have requirements, and they need the landed pharmaceutical companies to be able to create value for the local area, which includes not only allowing the government to see the value of 'exit', but also allowing the government to see that the company has landed projects to help local industries promote development, and will consider whether these enterprises can also solve some practical problems such as employment and tax revenue for the local area after landing, which are the focus of their attention. Sun Wen, a senior investor in the pharmaceutical industry, pointed out to Times Finance that "many companies will make prudent judgments based on their own circumstances." ”
The competition for investment in industrial parks is fierce, what does it rely on to attract biotech?
When will the policy be implemented and how much support will be provided, not only the pharmaceutical industry and enterprises are concerned about these issues. The relevant biomedical industrial park investment attraction and pharmaceutical investors are also waiting for the promotion of policies and the recovery of the industry, in order to enter the next cycle of healthy development.
In addition to the earliest and most complete "Zhangjiang Medicine Valley" in Shanghai, in recent years, many local governments have regarded the construction of biomedical industrial parks as one of the most important local projects.
Taking the biomedical parks in the Pearl River Delta region as an example, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Foshan, Zhaoqing, Zhongshan and Dongguan all have industrial parks in development, investment or construction. On the other hand, with the intensive introduction of policies in Nanjing, Guangzhou, Zhuhai, Beijing, Qingdao, Xiamen, Shanghai and other places last year and this year, policy support has continued to increase, upgrading from single-dimensional support to multi-dimensional support for the development of innovative drugs and the construction of future industry pilot zones, and helping the development of innovative drugs and devices in the whole chain from the production end to the payment end.
"As long as the policy is introduced, the support of real money will definitely be powerful for our industrial park. However, if the policy itself is not highly recommended and not very attractive to enterprises, then its effectiveness is not high for industrial parks. Zhou Jie told Times Finance that now the agglomeration of biomedical industrial parks is increasing, and the competition for investment has become fierce, and at the same time facing the trough of the general environment, the atmosphere of investment promotion is poor, and the peer pressure is also relatively large, which also causes some industrial parks to have policies, but the park is in a vacant or semi-vacant state.
Zhou Jie went on to explain that the industrial park is like one side of the supply chain, some people are opening vegetable markets, some people are doing supermarkets and chain stores, and some people are setting up stalls, and their respective demands are different, so there will be appropriate diversion, so from our point of view, the national competitive pressure is actually acceptable. "Generally speaking, customers returning from overseas, they have technical advantages, and they must choose industrial parks in the country, either in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen or in their hometowns, or they have resources or where the capital is located. But we are mainly targeting local companies, or only considering companies that are located in our local area, which leads to fierce competition between our regions. Zhou Jie said.
In Zhou Jie's view, first of all, in terms of hardware facilities, there is little difference between the industrial parks, and the policies between the regions are one of the advantages. Secondly, the characteristics of each region itself are also one of the reasons why enterprises will choose, such as Pingshan District, Shenzhen, low labor costs, strong personnel stability, Nanshan District, Shenzhen, good transportation, high supporting facilities, but high personnel costs, high mobility, and relatively high living costs, these situations will affect whether enterprises are willing to land.
"Since a company has decided to land in a super first-tier city, it will not actually consider landing projects in other surrounding cities. Especially in biomedicine, first-tier cities have a strong role in hardware, Secondly, medicine is divided into production and research and development, the research and development side needs a small area of the site, or can entrust others to produce and process, they can establish their own laboratory, the demand for the site is not large, they need talents the most, and the first-tier cities or super first-tier cities are often better than other regions, which leads to the first-line or super-first-tier enterprises will compare the advantages and disadvantages of the industrial park between the regions, and the regional government's investment policy。 Zhou Jie told Times Finance.
In the cold winter, compared with the advantages and disadvantages of the software and hardware facilities in the park, the most important thing for enterprises is capital, which is a relief for them. "The corporate financing environment has been very poor this year, and they all want someone to invest in their own business. If you are willing to invest, I will come to settle here, if you don't invest, I will not come. Zhou Jie observed from conversations with companies.
This is true even in the Yangtze River Delta, where the biomedical industry is well developed. When emerging pharmaceutical companies and their founders settle down, they will pay attention to cost-effectiveness, focusing on factors such as location, rent, and preferential policies.
In mid-March this year, Times Finance met Dr. Chen Limo, the founder of Queen's Boat Pharmaceutical, in Shanghai Lingang Nanqiao Science and Technology Oasis. Not long ago, he settled his office in this park. At that time, although Queen's Boat Pharmaceutical had just been established, he already had a clear idea of how to make innovative drugs.
Shanghai Lingang Nanqiao Science and Technology Oasis is located in the core area of Fengxian New Town, Shanghai, with a total planning area of 2,565 acres, and the first area (Science and Technology Oasis) has been built with 90~34,000 square meters of R&D buildings of different room types and areas, and the expansion area (Xinchuang Park) is dominated by 1,300~4,700 square meters of multi-storey single-family factories and R&D buildings.
Chen Limo told Times Finance that when he chose the location of the office, he considered the local preferential policies, as well as the software and hardware conditions. "'Zhangjiang Medicine Valley' has been rooted for a long time, and too many enterprises have started here, but on the other hand, it also means that new enterprises landing in Zhangjiang can no longer get more preferential space, including taxes and discounts. But Fengxian District is different, and the Shanghai government intends to direct high-tech industries to this new district. Fengxian New Area has more specific preferential policies such as various subsidies for talents, and it is also more convenient than Zhangjiang in terms of production, and it can build factories. Chen Limo said.
Investment, investment attraction and how to support the development of innovative drugs and devices with the most valuable policies are a process of multi-party game, and they are also mutual choices between each other, which should not only consider their own interests, but also judge the value of each other. Perhaps only in this way can we screen out the best quality enterprises and industrial parks, and can we truly promote the return of the pharmaceutical industry to spring.
"For example, the company we lease has many small office areas, and there are also those who only rent card spaces, as long as it is willing to settle in the park, we will not refuse psychologically. Zhou Jie told Times Finance, "We can't deny the growth of an enterprise, of course, for high-quality enterprises, we will give concessions in all aspects after the inspection." ”
(At the request of the interviewee, Song Yun, Zhou Jie, and Sun Wen are pseudonyms in the article)