Health is the most important guarantee for people to live a happy life. As "Healthy China" is designated as a national strategy, China's medicine and health care industry has entered the fast lane of innovation-driven development characterized by a clearer roadmap and an ambitious blueprint. Chengdu enjoys a tailwind from the times. Medicine and health care industry is one of the key pillar industries of Chengdu's modern industry system with international competitiveness and regional driving force.

Chengdu has clear thinking. Chengdu will take the supply-side structural reform as the main line, take "high-end, internationalization and ecologization" as the goal, take high quality and high efficiency as the basis, take the construction of industrial ecology, innovation ecology, enterprise ecology, talent ecology, financial ecology, functional area ecology and government affairs ecology as the core, and take bio-medicine, medical service, health service and medicine trade as the focus to promote the high-quality development of the medicine and health care industry, move up global industrial chain to the top and integrate itself into innovation chain and value chain deeper to the core at a faster pace, build a world-class and trillion-level ecological circle of medicine and health care industry and become a key fulcrum in Chengdu's effort to foster new development drivers and promote urban transformation and upgrading.

Chengdu has firm confidence. According to the data from Chengdu Municipal Economic and Informatization Commission, in 2017, the city's medicine industry above designated size realized a main business income of RMB 59.01 billion, up 18.7%; profits and taxes reached RMB 13.59 billion, up 32.4%; RMB 17.36 billion of investment in medicine industry was put in place, up 31.3%; major projects such as WuXi AppTec, WEGO, Boe Technology Group and Beike Biotechnology were introduced through contract, with a total investment of RMB 77.69 billion.

Now, Chengdu is working hard to press ahead whilst gearing up. In the future, Chengdu will make solid effort on focusing on key fields, building an innovative ecological chain, fostering key enterprises, constructing industrial functional zones, implementing major projects and other work, optimize supporting functional facilities, amplify the cluster effect of factors, enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of enterprises, move up global industrial chain to the top and integrate itself into innovation chain and value chain deeper to the core at a faster pace, continuously enhance the multi-dimensional integration, fusion and fission functions of the ecological circle of medicine and health care industry, and realize high-end high-quality and high-efficiency development.

Many projects choose to locate themselves in Chengdu

On June 30 last year, the contract for Chengdu WuXi AppTec Life Health Industrial Park was officially signed, confirming Chengdu Medical City as the project site. WuXi AppTec recognizes Chengdu as the premium location for its strategic development in Western China, and plans to invest RMB 10 billion to build an internationally and domestically leading life and health industrial park in Chengdu Medical City.

On September 14 last year, Global Drug Commercialization Center (GDCC) signed a cooperation agreement with GF Securities, Sichuan Development Holding Co., Ltd., Chengdu Jiaozi Financial Holding Co., Ltd. and Chengdu Tianfu International Biopolis Platform Corporation to commence the construction of Sichuan Bio-medicine Industry Fund with a total fund amount of RMB 10 billion.

Chengdu is becoming more and more attractive. In 2017, the city concluded many contracts and introduced 59 major medicine and health projects such as WuXi AppTec, WEGO, Boe Technology Group and Beike Biotechnology, with a total investment of RMB 77.69 billion; a total investment of RMB 11.59 billion in Chengdu's major biomedicine projects was put in place, accounting for 134.7% of the target for the whole year, up 110% year on year; construction for 20 projects such as the Medical Products Research and Development Base of Maccura Biotechnology completed and construction for 23 projects such as Medtronic Medical Innovation Center commenced; construction for a batch of cutting-edge projects like Novuseeds Medtech Artificial Intelligence Medical Care and Time Medical Internet Mobile Diagnosis Platform accelerated.

According to Chengdu Municipal Economic and Informatization Commission, Chengdu will bear in mind the future development direction of medicine and health industry to implement the action plan of the industrial ecological circle; take Chengdu Tianfu International Biopolis, Chengdu Medical City and other core functional zones as the core, Kelun Pharmaceutical, WuXi AppTec and other industry-leading enterprises (projects) as the lead and innovators and startups as the prop to optimize professional services and talent support and subsidy policies, move up global industrial chain to the top and integrate itself into innovation chain and value chain deeper to the core with proactive efforts, and accelerate the construction of an ecological circle for the medicine and health care industry with international competitiveness.

Talent is flooding into Chengdu

In October 2017, Medtronic's third project in Chengdu, the Medtronic Medical Innovation Center Project, broke ground in Singapore-Sichuan Hi-Tech Innovation Park, Chengdu. Upon completion, it will soon become a clinical training and scientific research platform on medical technology for medical personnel in Central and Western China. The center is expected to be put into operation in 2020, and train about 7,000 medical professionals each year within five years since operation.

Talent is a prerequisite for industrial development. Throughout 2017, Chengdu issued 50 new industrial policies. In addition to encouraging talent to settle down in the city, Chengdu also encouraged entrepreneurs to innovate and start businesses, especially "unicorn" ones, by relying on resources such as science and technology, talent and platforms of colleges and universities.

In fact, talent is also Chengdu's industrial strength. Chengdu is one of the cities with the most concentrated medical colleges and universities in the country, with 10 medical ones and 13 chemical engineering ones. Chengdu has always adhered to an innovative talent philosophy regardless of regions and not limited to local residents so as to introduce and train industrial talent with substantial effort. By the end of last year, the city had gathered 4.219 million talented people of various kinds. In the field of biomedicine, more than 30 high-level teams comprised of Nobel laureates, academicians of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and overseas returnees, and nearly 200 high-end professionals had been introduced.

According to Chengdu Municipal Economic and Informatization Commission, Chengdu will bring high-quality professional and technical talent pool into full play to promote the development of its bio-medicine industry. Going forward, Chengdu will further improve the talent introduction mechanism, continue to carry out talent recruitment activities in famous cities, universities, academies and enterprises, and accelerate the introduction of a number of professionals from both at home and abroad specializing in medicine research and development, medical services, health services, medicine trade and other fields. Meanwhile, it will make a big push on the implementation of talent training plans, continue to encourage more efforts from Sichuan University, Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and other local colleges and universities on developing medical and health disciplines, enhance cooperation with world-class colleges and universities, promote the establishment of medical colleges, research centers and medical research institutions in Chengdu, and train high-quality talent for Chengdu's medical and health industry.

Chengdu has a solid scientific research base.

Scientific research innovation is the core competitiveness of industrial development, and therein lies the reason for the growth of Chengdu's biomedicine industry.

Chengdu's biomedicine industry enjoys a long list of "firsts" and "onlys" — China's first first-in-class bio-drug with full independent intellectual property right and an international common name defined by the World Health Organization; China's first self-developed vaccine that has been pre-certified by the World Health Organization; China's first therapeutic plant drug that has entered the EU; world's fourth and Asia's first enterprise to independently develop and produce superconducting magnetic resonance imaging system; Western China's first FDA-certified sterile injection manufacturer; Western China's only stem cell bank ...

These achievements have much to do with Chengdu's innovation strength, supported by a number of domestically famous scientific research institutions in medicine and health including colleges and universities such as Sichuan University and Chengdu University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, national key laboratories, engineering research centers and enterprise technology centers. To name a few, the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy of Sichuan University, the West China Hospital of Sichuan University and the National Chengdu Center for Safety Evaluation of Drugs are all in the national lead technologically.

In the State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy of Sichuan University, more than 30 enterprises such as Sinopharm Group, Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding, Yangtze River Pharmaceutical Group and CSPC Pharmaceutical Group have transformed over 60 first-in-class drugs, and five of them have obtained clinical approval. This is also the first time in the world that a complete technological chain has been established in the same unit (laboratory) from basic research such as gene discovery to biotherapy/biopharmaceutical research and clinical treatment, involving over 1,000 high-level R&D professionals including academicians and professors of the Recruitment Program of Global Experts.

In the future, Chengdu will continue to speed up the implementation of the Project of Piloting and Demonstration Base of Transferring and Transforming National Major Special Achievements in Science and Technology for Discovery of Major New Drugs, consolidate the advantageous resources of many units such as West China Hospital and Kelun Pharmaceutical, carry out synergized innovation of industries, universities, research institutes and end users, build a world-class open generic technology platform and shared service platform for new drug discovery, break through the core and key technological bottlenecks between the development chain and the industrial chain, and establish a one-stop new drug R&D technological chain and achievement transformation industrial chain from drug discovery, preclinical development to clinical evaluation.

Chengdu builds professional carriers.

Located by Qishi Avenue, Zone A, Chengdu Medical City, Wenjiang District, the project site of Baiyu Pharmaceutical Innovative Drug R&D and Production Base is already leveled. With a total investment of RMB 3.3 billion, the Phase I will be completed by the end of December this year.

This is one of the representative projects of Chengdu Medical City. Taking building a world-class biomedical technology transformation center, a national leading innovation and entrepreneurship base for a new medicine and medical care industry, and Southwest China's largest full-chain biomedical industrial cluster as the goal, Chengdu Medical City will push ahead with the construction of main functional areas; taking medical application and health service as the leader and taking medical innovation and research and development as the main line, it will make a big push to promote the integrated development of medicine, drug and medical care; relying on a good ecological basis, a service cluster for health industry and a national agricultural high-tech development zone, it will make positive efforts to introduce international medical institutions, health care and elderly care service institutions, health research and development centers and other high-quality health and care projects to develop health care and elder care industries. By doing so, it aims to form a development landscape characterized by "the integration of medicine, drug and medical care, the coordination of the ecology, the service cluster for health industry and the national agricultural high-tech development zone, and the common prosperity of medicine, health care and elder care industries", and develop itself into a pioneer in health industry. To that end, it will focus on medical devices, biotech drugs, innovative drugs, medical services, intelligent health, contract services, medical insurance and other fields.

Meanwhile, taking the construction of "four chains, one community and one system" (i.e. industrial chain, innovation chain, supply chain, financial chain, livable international community, and specialized and precise policy system) as its path, and talent gathering as the core leading element of industrial development, Chengdu Tianfu International Biopolis is making a concentrated effort on developing four major industrial directions of biomedicine, biomedical engineering, biological service, and health new economy with a specific focus on biotech drugs, new chemical preparations, modern TCM drugs, high-performance medical devices and smart health + precision medicine and other industry segments, striving to build itself into a magnet for global biomedical innovation and entrepreneurship talent, a world-class capital of biomedical innovation and intelligence, an international town of life health, and an innovation piloting area in the high end of the global industrial chain and at the core of the global value chain.

Through promoting the concept of ecological circle, Chengdu is leading the industry clustering and factor agglomeration to build a world-class medical and health industrial park with well-developed supporting functions, highlighting cultural features and reflecting ecological livability.

Ye Yan, reporter of Chengdu Economic Daily