Pudong: Activating the ecosystem and achieving "new" growth

Recently, Wang Hao, President of Siemens Healthineers Greater China, participated in professional exhibitions, and would mention a hot word on the booth - new quality productivity, "China has reached the stage of having the ability to innovate independently and accelerate the formation of new quality productivity, and we must make more products that rely on China's local wisdom to feed global demand."

As a multinational company rooted in Pudong for more than 30 years, Siemens Healthineers has laid out R&D and manufacturing bases and innovation centers here, and promoted its own "Guozhi Innovation" China strategy with the "dual-line" model, deepening local R&D and production on the one hand, and building a local innovation cooperation ecosystem on the other hand. "We hope to promote industrial innovation with scientific and technological innovation and form a comprehensive and open innovation cooperation ecosystem. In Wang Hao's interpretation, this is undoubtedly consistent with the development direction of new quality productivity.

Today is the 34th anniversary of Pudong's development and opening up. At present, Pudong is the region with the largest number of foreign-funded R&D centers in Shanghai, with a total of 265 foreign-funded R&D centers recognized by the end of 2023. The "circle of friends" built by these R&D centers is an important part of the regional innovation ecosystem. By seizing key "nutrients" such as space, financing, and talents, Pudong strives to accelerate the convergence of innovative resource elements, so that this ecosystem can burst out with more innovative vitality and achieve "new" growth.

Strong links

For the young seedlings of science and technology, the role of financial elements is not only to provide financing, but also to link science and technology and industry.

In order to promote finance to better serve the real economy and give full play to the role of state-owned assets in investing early, investing in small, investing in the future, and investing in hard technology, the Pudong New Area Party Committee and District Government have built a venture capital ecosystem that matches the needs of Pudong's high-quality development through top-level design, system optimization and platform building. Among them, the establishment of Pudong Venture Capital Group is an important part of the construction of the state-owned venture capital system.

In the face of shortcomings such as insufficient investment in early-stage projects by market-oriented venture capital, Pudong Venture Capital has given full play to the function of state-owned venture capital to fill the position, set up Pudong Angel Fund of Funds, deeply participated in the starting area of scientific and technological innovation of "early investment and small investment", and initially formed an important functional fund platform with a scale of 9 billion yuan to further improve the ecology of Pudong venture capital.

"In September 2023, the Pudong Angel Fund of Funds was officially launched, with a scale of 2 billion yuan and an initial phase of 1 billion yuan, focusing on the transformation of scientific research achievements and innovation sources, and solving the problem of 'from 0 to 1'. "Up to now, we have screened more than 200 early-stage innovation projects, focused on more than 60 projects, and completed 19 projects. In addition, the layout of 5 sub-funds will be promoted this year. ”

In the next three years, Pudong's industrial investment promotion "circle of friends" is expected to continue to expand. In March, Pudong launched the construction of an equity investment cluster, announcing the creation of a number of distinctive regional equity investment clusters such as Lujiazui, Zhangjiang and Qiantan. The leading district fund will strive to form a 100 billion yuan sub-fund group to invest in Pudong through the four guiding parent funds, and strive to achieve an investment amount of no less than 30 billion yuan, which is about 10 times higher than the capital contribution of the leading district fund.

Strong magnetic field

"In recent years, many of my colleagues and I have a clear feeling that people are running to Qiantan, Zhangjiang and Jinqiao more and more frequently. In the view of Li Ling, President of CBRE China, the Golden Central Development Belt built by Pudong has successively strung together Jinqiao Intelligent Manufacturing City, Zhangjiang Science City, Expo Qiantan, as well as potential areas such as Sanlin Binjiang, Xinyangsi, Yuqiao, and Beicai, which is promoting the regional development model from a "point-like" development model to gradually forming a "strip" development closed loop with a wider radiation range, higher energy level, and smoother flow of factors and coordination. And this "strip" is also expected to become a strong magnetic field that attracts innovative elements.

In February this year, at the Golden Central Global Promotion Conference held in Pudong, the "Zhangjiang Science Gate" project, as the most eye-catching new landmark of Zhangjiang Science City's industry-city integration, recruited partners from all over the world, and is expected to be completed and delivered next year.

Zhangjiang Central District, where the "Zhangjiang Science Gate" is located, is not only a national-level artificial intelligence industry cluster, but also a data element cluster in Pudong. Guan Fenghua, deputy general manager of Shanghai Zhangjiang Science Gate Science and Technology Development Co., Ltd., said: "We hope to build such an ecology, where entrepreneurs upstairs and downstairs can meet for coffee at any time by the green lake due to the convergence of industries, and burst out new sparks and create new scenes in the exchange." ”

At present, a number of cutting-edge science and technology enterprises, listed companies, and GEM enterprises have intended to settle their headquarters in the "Zhangjiang Science Gate", and with the successive settlement of enterprises, the Zhangjiang City Sub-center will also be transferred from the construction stage to the operation stage.

Also in Zhangjiang Science City, the future industry pilot zone here can provide enterprises with space support covering the whole life cycle, including incubation and acceleration (Zhangjiang Medical Park), pilot test and headquarters (private enterprise headquarters cluster, Zhangjiang headquarters park) - industrialization (innovative drug industry base, medical device industry base), etc. Different industrial spaces are also combining their differentiated advantages to lay out cutting-edge fields such as cells and genes, AI+ life and health, and synthetic biology to form a strong support for cutting-edge innovation.

Strong ecology

BD has been in the bonded area for many years, and is one of the world's top three companies in the medical device industry, with the world's widest range of medical device product lines. Deng Jianmin, the company's global senior vice president and general manager of Greater China, told reporters that the Free Trade Zone Administration recently took the lead in building a comprehensive service platform for the integration of industry and medicine, so that the communication channels between enterprises and drug administration, health care, medical insurance and other industry regulatory departments are smoother, and the "circle of friends" of drugs and devices has been greatly expanded.

At the end of last month, Pudong held a conference on the collaborative development of industry and medicine in the bonded area, in addition to BD, a large number of multinational medical device and pharmaceutical companies such as Roche Diagnostics, Johnson & Johnson, Abbott, GE Healthcare, Siemens Healthineers, Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, as well as many innovative industrial chain enterprises, medical institutions and venture capital institutions have come. The platform mentioned by Deng Jianmin is the comprehensive service platform for the integration of industry and medicine in the bonded area of the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone established at this conference, focusing on the actual needs of the development of the biomedical industry, clearing obstacles and providing support for the burst of the biomedical industry.

Taking the needs of enterprises as the starting point, Pudong uses the advantages of institutional innovation to dredge the blockages for the development of hard-core industries and create a stronger innovation ecology. At present, the bonded area is making every effort to build an international medical device intelligent manufacturing base and a cross-border R&D and production pilot zone for the cell and gene therapy industry. On the open platform built by the Free Trade Zone Administration, the industry regulatory department can directly communicate and connect with enterprises, which also allows enterprises to see more possibilities brought by the integration of industry and medicine, innovation and linkage empowerment. Deng Jianmin said with emotion that the bonded area has always been committed to solving the actual needs of enterprise development, and has taken the initiative to position itself as the "government partner" of the enterprise to grow and develop together with the enterprise.

The person in charge of the Free Trade Zone Administration said that in the future, it is necessary to further focus on institutional innovation, industrial innovation and ecological innovation, accelerate the integration of industry and medicine with relevant departments, continuously enhance the international competitiveness of the biomedical industry, and continue to release new momentum for the high-quality development of the industry.