Riding for about 25 minutes from Gaopeng Avenue Station of Chengdu Metro No. 7, you can see the entrance of Tianfu Life Science Park.
Entering the Park, you will be greeted by shared bicycles in alignment. Fan Xiaodong, information commissioner of the park management company, told VCBeat that there are nearly 6,000 employees in the Park, and everyone has to rush to grab a bicycle every time they get off work. An investor once joked that the development level of sharing economy reflects the prosperity of a park.
Tianfu Life Science Park consists of two office buildings, one incubation building and seven R&D buildings. The logo of ChemPartner on B3 R&D Building is eye-catching. It settled in the Park at the earliest and now has developed into one of the top four CROs for new medicines. In April 20018, ChemPartner was acquired by a listed company Quantum Hi-Tech. In addition, more than 170 bio-pharmaceutical enterprises such as West China Hospital, Chengdu Baiyu Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Chengdu Conmed Biosciences, Celuna-China, and Chengdu Shengnuo Biotechnology Co., Ltd. have settled in the Park.
The building where ChemPartner settled in, photographed by a correspondent
Different from the non-decorated office space in R&D buildings, the incubator building is well decorated and equipped with basic office and R&D facilities. Entrepreneurs can start a business as soon as settling down. The incubation building accommodates about 50 companies, covering an area of 100 to 300 square meters.
Tianfu Life Science Park was started to build in 2008 and put into operation in 2010. As the incubator of science and technology enterprises of Sichuan Province, it has been being the benchmarking biomedical industrial park in western China. It was also included into the TOP 10 Most Attractive Biomedical Industrial Parks in China in 2017. Wan Xiang, Vice General Manager of the park management company told VCBeat that Tianfu Life Science Park took the first-class parks in China such as Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Industrial Development Zone and Suzhou High-tech Industrial Development Zone as its benchmark.
Why an inland park situated at the remote western China could attract so many outstanding projects, incubate a large number of high-profile projects and have competitiveness rivaling parks situated at coastal developed areas? To find out, VCBeat had an interview with Wan Xiang lasting three hours.
An investment hotpot situated at southwest China: exploration from 0 to 174
Wan Xiang began to serve in Tianfu Life Science Park in 2012. He told VCBeat that although most parks are built in suburbs, Tianfu Life Science Park locates opposite to a high-end residential area across Chengdu-Kunming Railway.
In 1988, Chengdu took the lead to build the hi-tech industrial development zone in Wuhou District. In 1991, Chengdu Hi-Tech Industrial Development Zone was approved by the government, and since then some industrial parks such as Chengdu Tianfu Software Park were built one after the other. With the hi-tech industrial development zone extending towards the south, the South Third Ring area in Chengdu where was used as farmland was flourishing. But the usage of this narrow plot locating opposite to the high-end residential area across a railway was still up in the air.
Over more than a decade, traditional pharmaceutical enterprises such as Diao Group and Enwei Group have grown up into giants, and the supporting GMP workshops and drug safety evaluation centers were built up successively.
In 2008, the Chengdu Hi-tech Investment Group Co., Ltd. decided to build Tianfu Life Science Park on this plot, and Chengdu Hi-tech Investment Real Estate Co., Ltd. undertook its construction. By the end of 2010, Tianfu Life Science Park was completed and put into operation. After that, an increasing number of bio-pharmaceutical enterprises gathered here, making this plot at the southeast of Chengdu an innovative center for the bioengineering and pharmaceutical industry of the city.
In 2010, ChemPartner settled in Tianfu Life Science Park when it was put into operation. As ChemPartner settled in, the Park introduced CRO services to enterprises in the Park at the beginning of the building of a new platform, benefiting them by technology and business.
From 2010 to 2019, Tianfu Life Science Park has been taking a constantly rising development path. Wan Xiang believes that the achievement of Tianfu Life Science Park partially owes to its late-mover advantages. “We acquire core competitiveness based on powerful service capability and service willingness through imitating and optimizing the model of Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone”, said Wan Xiang.
As Wan Xiang recalls, since the end of 2015, the popularity among investors of the Park has been increasing year by year. “In the past two years, the focus of investment institutions has expanded from specific star enterprises to the park.”
Conmed Biosciences, which was incubated in the incubation building in the Park at the end of 2016, obtained financing from angel round investment initiated by Legend Star at the beginning of its establishment, and was favored by many institutional and individual investors. The financing exceeded RMB 100 million and its value exceeded RMB one billion. Chen Bo, Founder of Conmed Biosciences, is one of the three founders of Shanghai Junshi Biosciences Co., Ltd.
In September 2016, Chen Bo, who was about to start his third venture, was attracted by Tianfu Life Science Park as soon as he entered the Park. He decided to locate his new venture here. Soon afterwards, Chen Bo was introduced as a key talented person in Chengdu. Less than three years after its founding, Conmed Biosciences has taken off. The company researched more than 20 antibody drugs, and screened out three independently innovative antibody drugs, two of which were supported by the Major New Drug Innovation Program of the “13th Five-Year Plan”.
According to statistics, the Park has introduced more than 400 international and domestic first-class projects, including over 50 FTNDs (first type of new drug) under study. In addition to ChemPartner and Conmed Biosciences, the Park has also introduced 174 well-known domestic and foreign enterprises represented by West China Hospital and Hengrui Medicine, as well as innovative and entrepreneurial enterprises represented by Chengdu Huamian Biotechnology Co., Ltd., Chengdu Antejin Biotechnology Co., Ltd. and Chengdu Maikekang Biotechnology Co., Ltd. It also incubated excellent enterprises including HitGen Inc. and Hinova Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Over many years of market-oriented operation and scientific use of marketization mechanism, relying on the scientific financial service platform of Chengdu Hi-tech Investment Group Co., Ltd., the Park has gathered multiple kinds of capitals such as banks, angel investment, VC capitals, PE fund investment and financing assurance. So far, a total of RMB five billion has been financed, including M&A.
Unique access mechanism
Investment promotion is the foundation for the development of the Park, but not all. At the beginning of its establishment, Tianfu Life Science Park strictly controlled the quality of the project. The jury system introduced from the beginning has been continued up to now, and the evaluation criteria have become increasingly strict in spite of many times of changes.
As introduced by Wan Xiang, the project review meeting of Tianfu Life Science Park consists of experts in various fields such as technology, venture capital, government relations, safety and environmental protection. The project review meeting conducts a comprehensive evaluation of the qualifications of projects applying for admission to the park from time to time. The evaluation criteria include: whether the project technology reaches the first level at home and abroad, whether the shareholding structure has major defects, and whether the team building is reasonable.
Project admission review meeting Photo provided by the Park
Wan Xiang told VCBeat that experts may give opposite opinions from different perspectives, and those projects that fail to be approved by all experts after optimization and adjustment according to experts’ opinions will be eliminated. “It turns out that those projects that were eliminated didn’t develop well.”
Over a decade, more than 200 enterprises have settled in the Park. Every year, some enterprises leave the Park for various reasons. At present, there are nearly 180 enterprises in the Park.
HitGen, which was just established in the Park last year, rented more than 18,000 square meters of office space in Chengdu Tianfu International Bio-town on the other side of the high-tech industrial development zone. Wan Xiang likes to call the “leave” of such enterprises as HitGen as “graduation”. HitGen was established in 2012 in Tianfu Life Science Park. Its founder, Li Jin, is a Chongqing native who graduated from Sichuan University.
Li Jin studied in the UK and worked for AstraZeneca, a multinational pharmaceutical company, and was promoted to Global Compounds Director. In 2012, Li Jin returned to China to start a business. He is developing innovative drugs with independent intellectual property rights while providing CRO services of new drugs. In the past six years, Tianfu Life Science Park has witnessed the growth of HitGen from a team of more than 10 persons to a large-scale pharmaceutical company with more than 300 employees.
Starting a business is not as easy as you think. In the past two years, four companies in the Park closed down, involving the hot fields such as intermediates and cell therapy. These enterprises cannot continue their operation either because of business or internal contradictions. This makes the Park strengthen and improve the admission review system.
Before arriving at the Park, what confuses us most was what makes the Tianfu Life Science Park located in the southwest China rival the best benchmarking parks in China such as Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Industrial Development Zone, Suzhou BIOBAY and Beijing Zhongguancun. Wan Xiang’s answer surprised me: “Cooperation is greater than competition between us”.
Cooperation was taking shape from 2016 to 2018. Tianfu Life Science Park launched the Yangtze River Biomedicine Innovation Service Alliance with the well-known parks along the Yangtze River Basin, including Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Industrial Development Zone and Suzhou BIOBAY, aiming to promote the coordinated development of parks in different regions. So far, the Alliance has signed an agreement in Shanghai for jointly launching a fund to invest in enterprises in those allied parks.
Wan Xiang told VCBeat that Tianfu Life Science Park really regarded the star parks in the Yangtze River Basin as the model and goal at the beginning of its establishment. With the operation and development of the park, the service team realized that high-quality enterprises tend to be distributed across the country, including the western region and the eastern region. The competition actually exists among parks in the same region. Specifically, the competition in the eastern region exists among parks in Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing and Taizhou, and the competition in the western region exists among parks in Chengdu, Chongqing, Xi’an and Wuhan.
“In the western region, Tianfu Life Science Park has always been the most attractive biological industrial park,” said Wan Xiang confidently.
Speaking of why the park is attractive to projects and funds, Wan Xiang believes that there are four reasons: business environment, supporting resources, technology platform and service capabilities.
First, the open and pragmatic business environment in Chengdu creates a good entrepreneurial atmosphere, which naturally attracts many entrepreneurs. In addition, the Park is located in the downtown Chengdu, providing convenient and superior geographical location, and quick access to the commuting and navigation infrastructure.
Second, there are abundant available resources around the Park. Chengdu is a talent gathering place in the western region, and the West China Hospital of Sichuan University with the best medical strength and the R&D strength ranking second in China is conducive to the development of enterprises.
Besides, Chengdu has a comfortable living environment and low cost of living. The optimistic attitude towards life in the city attracts many people to stay. “Most of the employees in the Park are local college graduates.”
Third, Chengdu has plenty of technology platforms. The improved technology platform systems in the Park has been able to efficiently meet different research and development needs of biology, chemistry, medicine, and information retrieval.
Public technology service platform for research and development of innovative drugs Photo provided by the Park
Fourth, the Park’s service team has strong professional ability, which is the core as Wan Xiang believes. At present, the team has a total of 27 members, all of whom have a professional background and a working experience that is rich enough to understand the characteristics of the industry and the needs of enterprises. “Six of them have experience in biomedical research and development.”
Wan Xiang told VCBeat that, compared to the technical strength, the service team’s continuous improvement in operational capabilities, and the improving life cycle incubation system in line with the characteristics of the biomedical industry constitute the core competitiveness of the Park.
As the general leader of the Park’s operations, Wan Xiang is very busy. During the three hours of our interview, he answered four calls, and left the office three times for work coordination, and instructed the staff to modify the document wording twice. He has already made himself a full schedule for next week.
At the end of 2018, the second phase of Tianfu Life Science Park, covering an area of 167 mu and a total building area of 294,000 square meters, was completed and officially handed over to the park management company in early 2019. “Together with the 220,000 square meters of the first phase of the park, 27of us in the service team serves nearly 20,000 square meters per person.” Wan Xiang teased.
Phase II of Tianfu Life Science Park Photo provided by the Park
The second phase of the Tianfu Life Science Park is called the Biomedical Innovation Incubation Park. It is positioned to create a new polar core and source of innovative development for cutting-edge medical innovation in Chengdu, focusing on cross-border new formats such as smart health, precision medicine and medical cosmetology. The second phase was put into use at the end of 2018, and seven projects at home and abroad has settled in, and more than 20 projects are under discussion.
The second phase of the Park is more modern and will introduce global quality projects around cutting-edge medicine, smart health, precision medicine and medical cosmetology. As a project jointly conducted by Chengdu and Sichuan University, some carriers of the second phase of the Park are used to create the frontier medical center and undertake the transformation needs of all medical and pharmaceutical projects in Sichuan University. With the goal of building a world-class “Medical+” innovative research, project incubation and industrial introduction hotspot, the center will blend in the bio-industry ecosystem of the hi-tech industrial development zone to help Chengdu build a medical health industry system with international competitiveness and regional driving force.
Being able to compete with the best-in-class parks in China and expand its business scope is undoubtedly a milestone success of Tianfu Life Science Park. “The team will build the Park into a platform based on the integration of multi-functional professional platforms,” Wan Xiang told VCBeat.
Wan Xiang stated that when such resources as parks, large enterprises, hospitals, governments and public platforms gather in the Park, the Park can actually provide more services for the development of enterprises by strengthening the interaction between enterprises. “Because the biomedical industry has a long chain, the entire resources are integrated as long as the industrial chain resources are opened up, thus forming an ecosphere.” Furthermore, once the park is opened as a platform, enterprises will be able to find various resources on the industrial chain conveniently through the Park.
Tianfu Life Science Park called the park platformization measures “park +”, which is the work focus of the Park in recent years. The Park has tried to open up the industrial chain resources by setting up financial service platforms, holding entrepreneurial contests and road shows.
In addition, the Park adheres to the path of internationalization. From a global perspective, the Park invites the world’s best projects to form global competitiveness. The first is to attract foreign investment. Each year, the Park will study the development of each segment of global biomedicine, conduct research on outstanding enterprise talented people and projects, and attract investment. The second is to go global, that is to gradually expand the international influence of the Park through professional forums and other propaganda methods.
At the same time, the first phase of the Park is weeding out enterprises with low-end industries, poor development and serious pollution, and bringing in more potential enterprises.
The market-oriented exploration of the Park in the past two years is also worthy of attention. Focusing on the whole life cycle service, Tianfu Life Science Park tries to provide resource services such as liquid waste treatment and sales of consumable items and reagents for enterprises in the park, thus enhancing the self-sustaining capability of the Park while improving the service level and efficiency.
At the end of the interview, Wan Xiang told us that by the end of 2019, the Chengdu Metro Line 7 will be connected to the pedestrian passage in the Park. By then, the Park will blend in the urban traffic map of Chengdu, facilitating the development of enterprises in the Park.
Park WeiChart