"We have tangibly felt the constant optimization of China's business environment in recent years," said Edward Zhou, president of Cytiva China, a subsidiary of the global life sciences leader, recalling how the company settled in the Lingang new area of the Shanghai free trade zone (FTZ).
Technicians work at an innovation center of Cytiva. (Photo provided by Cytiva)
According to him, Cytiva China received its business license just three days after applying for it and finished all registration work in two months.
"After we started official operations, the streamlined international settlement services and preferential policies of talent attraction provided by Lingang new area have significantly improved our operational efficiency and lowered operational costs. They contributed a lot to our rapid development achieved in such a short period of time," Zhou noted.
Cytiva is part of the Danaher Corporation Life Sciences platform. It has about 10,000 employees in some 40 countries and regions around the world and focuses on the research of a series of innovative technologies such as biomedicine, and cell and gene therapies.
In 2021, the company established its first R&D Center of Excellence in Asia in Shanghai, which aims to remove the barriers between technologies and their commercialization and align global technologies with local demands.
Last year, it built a new production line of bioprocess disposables with its Chinese partners, which serves the Chinese and Asia-Pacific markets. The production line is able to lift production capacity by threefold.
Zhou called the Chinese market a huge magnetic field that attracts global innovative enterprises and partners. He believes that the Chinese biomedicine industry had witnessed drastic changes in the past 10 years and still enjoys infinite possibilities.
According to a report recently issued by the company, the Chinese biomedicine sector is performing well in terms of production vitality and supply chain resilience. The report also indicated the high enthusiasm of Chinese enterprises for innovative technologies and highly-qualified talent, laying the foundation for the market's long-term growth.
"As China further expands its opening up, the cooperation between Chinese and foreign enterprises will become closer," Zhou said, adding that as the second-largest economy in the world, China plays a crucial role in the world economy.
China's continuous opening up will effectively promote international sci-tech exchanges and the global flow of talent and capital in the biotech and biomedicine industry, he said.
A development plan for the sector during the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) period issued by China in 2022 proposed to accelerate the development of biological technologies, which indicates that the biotech economy has become a strong force driving the country's high-quality development.
Last November, Cytiva announced it would invest 60 million yuan ($8.92 million) more in building an innovation center in China, which increased the total investment to 100 million yuan.
The company hopes to provide products, technologies, services and innovative solutions for the entire industry in bioprocessing and clinical production, incubation of new therapies, talent training, smart manufacturing and compliance validation. The innovation center is currently under construction and will be put into use this year.
Zhou is quite optimistic about the future development of his company.
“Chinese enterprises will enhance their capability in overseas operation, which helps realize cross-border development of more innovative medicines, accelerates the return on innovation investment and benefits more patients. In addition, foreign enterprises, by further advancing their investment and cooperation in China, will better share the results of China's economic development and achieve win-win and even multi-win results," Zhou said.
He told the People's Daily that Cytiva will step up its efforts to advance localization, and work with more Chinese partners to push for intelligent, standardized and massive development of China's biomedicine industry, so as to benefit more patients around the world with Chinese innovative medicines.