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Life science research, the foundation of bio-pharmaceutical development, is experiencing an unprecedented rise and explosive growth. It is a knowledge-intensive discipline and needs high-end talent and cutting-edge ideas to foster innovation and development. The first international young life scientists’ forum offered a glimpse of how the discipline works. It was held in the Beijing Economic-Technological Development Area, also known as E-town, from Sept 11 to 13.
Nearly 30 industrial giants in the industry and more than 200 young scientists from China, the US, South Korea and Spain attended the forum, where 50 academic reports and 200 papers were presented. Prominent participants included Shi Yigong, winner of the GregoriAminoff Prize from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences; Robert Desimone, an academician from the US National Academy of Sciences; and Sangram Sisodia, a professor from the University of Chicago. They exchanged notes in cutting-edge areas, such as protein antibody technology, tumor studies, translational medicine and structural biology.
The forum was sponsored by E-town and undertaken by Sino Biological Inc. It received support from the Ministry of Science and Technology’s China Science and Technology Exchange Center and the State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. Many experts gave special reports or lectures, and also talked directly with life science students. There were four parallel sessions. The biological medicine research and development session focused on protein antibody technology and infectious diseases immunity. The tumor session was devoted to tumor mechanism, including molecular tumor mechanism, and immunotherapy. The structural biology session explored membrane protein structure biology, cellular process and complex structural biology. The translational medicine session discussed stem cells and neurological diseases.
The biological medicine industry is a booming strategic emerging industry in China and one of the ten major sectors of "Made in China 2025". It is knowledge intensive and has high added value. The industry is in accord with the development of Beijing as the scientific and technical innovation center in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. It is one of the major sectors that have received support from E-town over the years. China's biological medicine sector witnessed a 13.95 percent rise in revenue growth and 11.82 percent rise in profit growth in 2014. The figures greatly outpaced the GDP growth rate. By 2020, the country's bio-pharmaceutical market will become the world’s second biggest, behind only the US.
Bio-pharmaceutical is one of the four leading industries in E-town and has maintained steady effective growth. The output value in E-town reached 18 billion yuan during the first seven months and continued in double-digit growth. Sino Biological Inc has become the world's biggest recombinant protein and antibody facility after ten years of development. It now offers biological technical service to global drug enterprises and research and development institutes. The company's protein and antibody products for scientific studies have been sold to more than 80 countries. There are now more than 500 bio-pharmaceutical enterprises like Sino Biological in E-town, forming an industrial chain integrating drug research and development screening, scale production, listing and circulation. At the same time, E-town has developed 17 various public service platforms, and eight national and municipal scientific business incubators. The town has attracted a variety of science and technology financing institutes, offering venture investment and intermediary services for all major links in new drug research and development.
