SHENZHEN, which aims to build itself into China’s health care industrial stronghold, has seen a wave of deals in the biomedical sector over the past month, signifying the booming city’s initial achievements in fostering a local innovative biopharmaceutical industry.

Guo Guangchang, chairman of Fosun International, announced during the 2023 Shenzhen Global Investment Promotion Conference earlier this month that the Shanghai-based conglomerate will establish its Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area headquarters in Pingshan, making it the company’s second global bio-health headquarters and one of the firm’s hubs for innovative drugs.

Fosun Health Fund, a subsidiary of Fosun International, was also chosen as a fund manager to run the Shenzhen biomedicine industrial fund, a 5-billion-yuan (US$700.62 million) industrial fund which is part of Shenzhen’s efforts to nurture the city’s growth drivers of the future.

“As a participant, witness and beneficiary of Shenzhen’s reform and opening-up, Fosun will continue to increase its investment in the city,” Guo said.

GE HealthCare Technologies Inc., which completed its separation from its former parent General Electric Co. in January, has also sped up its investment in Shenzhen this year by sealing two deals in the city.

The U.S. medical technology firm announced in February that it teamed up with China National Medical Device Co., a subsidiary of giant domestic drugmaker Sinopharm, to develop, manufacture and commercialize medical equipment to address the growing needs of China’s health care market.

It has also joined hands with the Shenzhen Bay Laboratory and the Shenzhen Medical Academy of Research and Translation in industry-university-research cooperation.

“All these are impossible without Shenzhen’s economic vitality, innovative atmosphere, supply chain system, talent pool and international exchange environment,” Zhang Yihao, CEO and president of GE HealthCare China, said during the same conference.

In China, GE HealthCare has six bases and seven factories supplying the globe, with 80% of its products are made in China. The company hopes to keep localization and innovation in China, and thinks Shenzhen is one of the best places in terms of innovation.

“GE HealthCare will leverage Shenzhen as a pivot point to drive the development of our supply, industrial and innovation chains in the Greater Bay Area, and construct a “win-win chain” of high-end medical devices in China,” Zhang said.

Siemens Healthineers is also betting big on Shenzhen’s innovation and manufacturing capacity.

The German health technology firm signed a memorandum of cooperation with Shenzhen’s city government Dec. 12 to jointly promote the development of Shenzhen’s high-end medical device sector and help Siemens Healthineers China achieve fast growth in high-end medical devices.

Siemens Healthineers announced in March an additional investment of 1 billion yuan or more to set up a state-of-the-art research and manufacturing site in Shenzhen, the second such facility in the city.

“Our decision to invest in a research center as well as in production in Shenzhen bears testament to Shenzhen’s innovative capacity and pioneering spirit,” Bernd Montag, CEO of Siemens Healthineers, said then.

Shenzhen’s continuous efforts to create a market-oriented, legalized and internationalized business environment and the city’s push to build itself into an innovative hub for the biopharmaceutical industry are believed to be the driving forces behind the surge in recent biomedical sector deals in the city, analysts told local media outlets.

Shenzhen’s mature industrial chain in the biopharmaceutical industry proves to be one of the important factors that attract large medical firms’ investments.

The city’s various biopharmaceutical firms are mainly located in six districts including Pingshan, Nanshan, Futian, Longgang, Guangming and Dapeng, with a complete industrial chain consisting of firms in the upstream, midstream and downstream sectors.

Official data show that Shenzhen is currently home to 140 large-scale biopharmaceutical firms, with 11 publicly listed ones, including eight companies with revenues exceeding 1 billion yuan and four with revenues exceeding 10 billion yuan. In the first three quarters of this year, the added value of the biopharmaceutical industry in the city reached 14 billion yuan.

As of July 2023, the number of innovative entities in Shenzhen’s biopharmaceutical industry had expanded to more than 500 and the city has one national-level clinical medical research center, four provincial-level centers and 14 municipal-level centers. (Yang Yunfei)