Suzhou High-tech Zone advances into the hundreds of billions of yuan medical device industry

 On July 26, the Twelfth Party Congress of Suzhou City's Huqiu District proposed that during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the entire district should work together to promote the medical device and biopharmaceutical industries towards a 100-billion-level industrial cluster, achieving specialized and clustered development of key industries.

       `nbsp_tag"Without a highly competitive industry to support us, we cannot shoulder the responsibility of being a leader." Mao Wei, Party Committee Secretary of Suzhou High-tech Zone and Secretary of Huqiu District Committee, stated that starting from a new starting point, Suzhou High-tech Zone, as one of the first national high-tech zones in the country, will always keep in mind its original mission of "developing high technology and achieving industrialization." It will use the construction of 10-billion-level and 100-billion-level industrial clusters and characteristic advantageous industrial chains as a lever to build a modern industrial system, strive to build a demonstration zone for innovation-driven development, a pioneer zone for high-quality development, and strive to be at the forefront of national innovative science and technology parks and at the forefront of Suzhou's construction of a strong socialist modern city.

        Suzhou High-tech Zone is the only region in the province that is prioritized for the development of the medical device industry under the "one district, one industry" policy and is one of the two core areas of the Suzhou biopharmaceutical industry. Currently, the zone has gathered more than 400 medical device-related enterprises, has nearly 2,000 patents, employs more than 10,000 people, and the annual output value of the industry has maintained a growth rate of 30% for consecutive years, reaching 20 billion yuan last year.

        "From 20 billion yuan to 100 billion yuan, there is still a large gap to the goal, but we are confident." Tao Guanghong, Deputy Director of the Suzhou High-tech Zone Management Committee, introduced that this confidence stems from a series of layouts made by Suzhou High-tech Zone over the past ten years focusing on building the optimal ecosystem for the development of the medical device industry.

        In the ecosystem built by Suzhou High-tech Zone for the medical device industry, platform aggregation is a key keyword. Focusing on the development of the medical device industry, Suzhou High-tech Zone has formed a development ecosystem consisting of innovation platforms, incubation platforms, service platforms, carrier platforms, and capital platforms. Taking Jiangsu Medical Device Technology Industrial Park as an example, as a national medical device technology industrial park jointly built by Suzhou High-tech Zone and the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in addition to hundreds of related enterprises, the park has also introduced a number of professional platforms such as Southeast University Suzhou Medical Device Research Institute and Jiangsu Provincial Medical Device Testing Institute Suzhou Branch. It has successively been approved as a national Torch Program characteristic industry base, an innovative industrial cluster pilot, and a national-level science and technology business incubator. Due to the accelerated aggregation of industrial resources, Jiangsu Medical Device Technology Industrial Park has undergone several "expansions," and the 156-mu Phase IV project is under construction.

        In the ecosystem built by Suzhou High-tech Zone for the medical device industry, collaborative innovation is the core competitiveness. "Medical devices are high-tech industries with a high degree of cross-integration in terms of disciplines and technologies. For this industry to be independent and controllable, it is difficult to rely solely on the strength of enterprises; it is necessary to leverage the cutting-edge technologies of various disciplines." Wu Haizhou, CEO of Yaoshi Medical Technology Co., Ltd., is pleased that shortly after settling in the area, his company reached a cooperation agreement with Southeast University Suzhou Medical Device Research Institute under the guidance of the local government to jointly develop new products. The engineering prototype is expected to be completed this year. Similarly, the flexible endoscope jointly developed by Suzhou Frankmann Medical Device Co., Ltd. and the Suzhou Institute of Biomedical Engineering of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has successfully obtained international and domestic certifications and has been sold.

        Towards the goal of a 100-billion-level industrial cluster, the medical device industry ecosystem built by Suzhou High-tech Zone is releasing continuous "gravitational waves," expanding the "circle of friends" of industrial development.

        On July 28, shortly after the operation of a disposable bioreactor bag project with an investment of US\$10 million, Thermo Fisher Scientific, a US medical device company, made an initial investment of US\$50 million to establish its life sciences industrial base in Suzhou High-tech Zone, introducing a series of life sciences projects such as in-vitro diagnostic reagents and cell culture media, and ultimately establishing the China headquarters of the in-vitro diagnostic center and the China headquarters of biopharmaceuticals. After 10 years of gratifying development, Thermo Fisher Scientific has established a solid partnership with Suzhou High-tech Zone, frequently increasing investment and expanding production.

        Not only projects, but also a number of outstanding achievements have emerged. Recently, the China Patent Gold Award of the State Intellectual Property Office was announced, and a type of ventilator from Fishy Medical was included in the list for breaking through the "bottleneck" technology in the medical device industry. Suzhou Fishy, located in Jiangsu Medical Device Technology Industrial Park, is the main R&D and production center for this ventilator. In early July, the warm-blood transport platform jointly developed by Suzhou Xinqing Medical Technology Co., Ltd. and Wuhan Union Hospital successfully completed the first animal donor heart warm-blood transport experiment in China, marking a major breakthrough in the cutting-edge field of heart transplantation in China, and is expected to extend the longest preservation time of the heart to 12 hours, about twice the commonly used cold ischemia protection time in China.

        Data shows that since this year, more than 80 medical device companies in Suzhou High-tech Zone, including Youwei Gene, Kando Robotics, Xinqing Medical, Wushuang Medical, Depin Medical, EDDA Health Technology, and Kuan Yue Orthopedics, have successively obtained financing from a number of well-known top-tier capital firms such as Sequoia Capital, Shenzhen Venture Capital, CDH Investments, Dacheng Capital, Northern Lights Venture Capital, and Qiming Venture Partners, with a total financing amount exceeding 10 billion yuan. In addition, Suzhou High-tech Zone has also specifically established a science and technology credit product "Rongyi Loan" for the medical device industry and established a medical device mother fund with a total scale of 10 billion yuan and a major health industry fund of 1.5 billion yuan.

        "We are full of confidence in this new goal and are discussing a new round of development plans." Suzhou Collaborative Innovation Medical Robot Research Institute has been established in Suzhou High-tech Zone for many years. Sun Yuning, the vice president, believes that the current medical device industry has a huge prospect and strong competitiveness, and Suzhou High-tech Zone has taken the lead in layout and has formed certain industrial advantages. In his view, the research institute, as a member of the medical device industry ecosystem of Suzhou High-tech Zone, should focus on several key sub-fields for breakthroughs and develop together with partners in the circle to embrace the dividends of a new round of development.

This information comes from the internet. Please contact us to delete it if there is any infringement.