Research on the Countermeasures for the Development of Biopharmaceutical Industrial Parks in China

Zhang Zongjie,Wu Zhiang

(School of Business Administration, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang 110016, China)

Abstract Objective To systematically analyze the current development status of biopharmaceutical industrial park in China,sort out the problems and put forward some countermeasures and suggestions.Methods Relevant literature was searched and reviewed to find out the problems faced by the development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks in China.Results and Conclusion Biopharmaceutical industrial parks are developing rapidly due to their unique industrial clustering advantages,but there are problems such as lack of overall planning at the top level,insufficient government support,imperfect talent support services and weak innovation capacity of the parks.It is recommended to promote the rapid development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks and biopharmaceutical enterprises by strengthening top-level design,increasing government support,focusing on talent introduction,and enhancing the innovative strength of the parks.

Keywords: biopharmaceutical industrial park;development status,countermeasures research

Biopharmaceutical industry is a key strategic industry for China,and it is an emerging industry with great growth and vitality.As a sunrise industry,it has always been the focus of competition among countries around the world.With the acceleration of economic globalization and the intensification of competition among countries in the biopharmaceutical industry,it has become an important indicator of a country’s modernization level.Therefore,the development of biopharmaceutical industry is conducive to improving social health,promoting regional economic growth,and enhancing national core competitiveness and comprehensive national power[1].

Biopharmaceutical industrial parks have played an important role in promoting the transfer and transformation of scientific and technological achievements due to their unique advantages of industrial clustering,which can gather various resources such as technology,capital and talents.So,biopharmaceutical industrial parks have gradually become an important support for the development of China’s biopharmaceutical industry.In order to implement the national requirement of accelerating the construction of a biopharmaceutical industry,several provinces and cities have issued relevant policies.For example,Wuxi City issued “Several Measures on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Wuxi Biopharmaceutical Industrial Park” to clarify the development objectives and planning layout of the park.Shanghai also released the “Implementation Plan on Promoting the Development of Biopharmaceutical Industrial Parks with Special Features” to guide the construction of industrial parks with special features.

With the support of policies,the number of biopharmaceutical industrial parks in China has been increasing and their scale has been expanding,but there are still some shortcomings compared with the advanced industrial cluster highlands abroad.Based on the existing industrial park pattern,this paper summarized the shortcomings in the development of China’s biopharmaceutical industrial parks.Then,some countermeasures were put forward,with a view to providing reference for promoting the high-quality development of China’s biopharmaceutical industrial parks.

1 Overview of the development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks in China

1.1 Development history

Although China’s biopharmaceutical industrial parks started late,they have been developing rapidly since the early 1990s.Based on the support of government policies and driven by the role of marketization,China’s biopharmaceutical industry has developed in clusters and the number of industrial parks has been increasing.

1.1.1 Preliminary development stage

China’s government began to approve the construction of economic and technological development zones in August 1988,and launched the Torch Plan -a plan for the development of high-tech industrialization,clearly proposing the creation of high-tech industrial development zones and high-tech entrepreneurial service centers.To develop biomedicine,one of the development projects in the development zones,some biopharmaceutical industrial parks have been gradually built,but the number of the parks is small that does not show a cluster development situation.

1.1.2 Rapid development stage

In the 21st century,China has comprehensively increased investment in the biopharmaceutical industry with the goal of building an innovative country.Therefore,biopharmaceutical industrial parks have been established and developed rapidly.To better promote the development of biopharmaceutical industry clusters,the National Development and Reform Commission built 22 national biopharmaceutical industry bases in batches during the 11th Five-Year Plan period,gathering biopharmaceutical talents,technology,capital and other industrial factors in advantageous areas,and the industrial clustering effect has emerged.

1.1.3 Innovative development stage

During the 12th Five-Year Plan period,nearly 100 biobased parks were established in Beijing,Shanghai,Shenzhen,Tianjin,Guangzhou,Harbin,Shijiazhuang,Jinan,Qingdao,Tonghua and other cities,which further promoted the development of regional economy.During the 13th Five-Year Plan period,under the guidance of the strategic requirements of the national top-level design,the domestic biopharmaceutical industry had shown a rising trend of agglomeration,forming industrial clusters including the Yangtze River Delta region,the Pearl River Delta region,the Bohai Sea region and the Northeast region.In addition,Henan and Hubei in the central region,and Sichuan and Chongqing in the western region also lay a good industrial foundation.The 14th Five-Year Plan has included biomedicine and a new generation of artificial intelligence and quantum information into the frontier areas of science and technology.Besides,China’s biopharmaceutical industrial parks actively practices the new development concept,accelerating the construction of a new development pattern,and strives to promote high-quality development.

1.2 Development characteristics

1.2.1 Cluster-based development

More than 200 biopharmaceutical industrial parks have been established across the country,extending from the Yangtze River Delta,the Pearl River Delta,the Beijing-Tianjin Wing and other regions.They have expanded their coverage to the west,and now they are forming major clusters such as the Yangtze River Economic Belt in central China that includes Sichuan and Chongqing.Their advantages in innovation,competition,collaboration,organization and culture,the synergistic effect formed and the powerful enterprises scale,industrial chains and value-added chains are constantly promoting the continuous development of the biopharmaceutical industry,which is becoming a new driving force for China’s economic growth.

1.2.2 Industry-university-research interaction

As the optimization and coordination of scientific research resources,education resources and production resources,the combination model of industryuniversity-research breaks down the cooperation barriers among enterprises,research institutes and universities,and integrates various resources needed for technological innovation,which is an important means to realize innovation-driven and transformation of achievement[2,3].Large pharmaceutical companies,such as Hengrui Medicine,while focusing on building R&D teams,developed new drugs through cooperation with research institutes and universities in the early stage,which helped overstep from generic drugs to innovative drugs.Some small and mediumsized R&D companies,such as Hutchison Whampoa and Baiji Shenzhou,focused on a certain therapeutic area and conducted independent R&D through the capital market or cooperative outsourcing.Meanwhile,some scientific research institutes usually conduct innovative drug R&D together with pharmaceutical companies.Collaborative development between pharmaceutical companies,new drug development companies,universities,research institutes and contract research organization (CRO) service providers greatly reduces R&D costs and risks.

1.2.3 Digitalization development

Driven by various factors such as the national 13th Five-Year Plan and 14th Five-Year Plan policies,China has built more than 150 biopharmaceutical industrial parks,and some industrial parks are in the eastern region at the forefront of development.However,most of the industrial parks have the problem of homogeneous trend.At present,China’s biopharmaceutical industry digitalization is still at a primary level.Besides,the industrial Internet relying on AI and big data technology will become an effective bearing mode.Using the cross-space and cross-regional resource utilization mode of the Internet can greatly improve the efficiency of scattered innovation resources.In addition,industrial factors such as collaboration mechanisms should be built to improve the overall innovation efficiency of the industry[4-6].

2 Problems in the development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks in China

2.1 Lack of overall planning at the top level

Based on the support of the national biopharmaceutical industry policy and the characteristics of high profits,China has seen a boom in the construction of biopharmaceutical industrial parks.However,at present,there is no clear planning scheme for the development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks.Most of the biopharmaceutical industrial parks are scattered,lacking coordinated spatial layout planning.Besides,the industrial structure of most parks tends to be homogeneous,with insufficient development characteristics,such as insufficient talents,resources and capital,leading to the waste of resources of land and capital,which is not conducive to the gathering of industries[7].The lack of clear distinction in industrial positioning,development direction and mode in some parks has caused some problems such as low-level duplication within the region and surrounding areas.What is worse,it even leads to vicious competition in terms of attracting investment and talents.

2.2 Insufficient government support

Among the leading enterprises in the category of medical device and biomedicine,some of them are at the top level at home and abroad in terms of technology and production process,but the empowerment of enterprises in the industrial park is limited because the government and social capital have not yet given them enough motivation and support.This has resulted in many of China’s biopharmaceutical industrial parks lacking sufficient funding and resources for the best scaling of scientific research results and thus expanding their visibility both at home and abroad.Due to insufficient support and inadequate overall R&D investment,enterprises do not have an advantage in patent award applications and patent rights maintenance,which is precisely the problem of inadequate overall R&D investment in domestic biopharmaceutical industrial parks.In particular,many enterprises have high-quality project resources,but they have to stop their projects because they do not have sufficient funds.This shows that the development and construction of biopharmaceutical industrial parks in China urgently needs financial support.It means the government should take the lead in building an information sharing and cooperation platform to give full play to government functions.

2.3 Imperfect of talent support services

Today,as China’s biopharmaceutical industry is booming,more biopharmaceutical industrial parks are focusing on building “talent special zones” to gather high-level talents,which can cultivate hightech enterprises and create a good development environment.However,companies still have difficulties in attracting and retaining talents.Firstly,there are obvious shortcomings in the policies for the introduction of talents compared to mature industrial parks in China.For example,the most obvious problem is that the evaluation of individual contribution does not fully take into account the characteristics of the biopharmaceutical industry.The biopharmaceutical industry is a technology-intensive industry that places great value on individual awards for research results.However,when companies apply for individual awards,most of the submissions may not have much to do with the innovation results.The existing criteria for evaluating individual contributions do not fully reflect the characteristics of the industry,making many high-end talents with higher-tech achievements unqualified for the award,thus discouraging high-end talents from remaining in the park.Secondly,there is a differential treatment in the subsidy policy for talents.Although at this stage,the government has provided a range of services and safeguards to industrial parks to retain talents,many of the preferential policies are only for the inflow of talents from abroad,resulting in the exodus of many local talents because they do not enjoy the same preferential policies.At the same time,because a comprehensive talent support service platform has not yet been formed within the industrial parks,there is no efficient and convenient platform to solve some personal problems such as settlement,residence visas,children’s schooling and medical treatment for foreign and returnee talents.These result in the industrial parks not having sufficient advantages in attracting foreign talents.

2.4 Low innovation capacity of the park

Innovation is the key point of vitality for the development of biopharmaceutical industry[8].The government’s assessment in biopharmaceutical industrial parks is oriented to indicators such as the park’s output value and tax contribution,but the consideration of indicators such as innovation capacity is incomplete and there is no clear assessment mechanism,leading to a discrepancy between the park’s investment direction and the park’s industrial positioning.Since the technology and equipment required for the development of China’s biopharmaceutical industry are mostly imported,these enterprises lace the ability to produce and research independently,and their competitiveness in the international market is limited.Moreover,the development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks is uneven,with most of them not having a strong innovation capacity and a lack of effective cooperation and communication among pharmaceutical enterprises,research institutions,universities,medical institutions and intermediary services in the parks.Therefore,the innovation elements are not closely linked,which affects the performance of the innovation network at the level of patents and the transformation rate of scientific and technological achievements,resulting in the enterprises in the industrial parks mainly producing and manufacturing low-value products[9].

3 Suggestions for the development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks in China

3.1 Strengthening top-level design

At the national planning level,the coordination and guidance of biopharmaceutical industrial parks should be strengthened to avoid low-level duplication and reduce vicious competition,which can ensure the balanced development of the entire national biopharmaceutical industry.At the local level,the government should reasonably subdivide regional industrial parks according to their unique advantages,refine the layout,highlight their regional advantages and characteristics,establish biopharmaceutical industrial parks with distinctive features,moderate scale and reasonable number.In addition,it should formulate industrial plans that meet local conditions and provide corresponding supporting measures[10-14].At the park level,work objectives and ideas should be further clarified,and the interconnectedness of enterprises should be comprehensively considered when selecting enterprises to move in,which can form an industrial chain with a complete upstream,midstream and downstream structure and a sound peripheral support industrial system,thus promoting the development of industrial clusters.

3.2 Increasing government support

Biopharmaceuticals are a high-investment,longcycle and high-risk industry.At present,as most investment institutions are reluctant to invest in highrisk new drug development,especially innovative projects,it is particularly important to strengthen the role of government guidance.The government needs to formulate some preferential policies and increase financial support for enterprises to carry out new drug development through R&D subsidies for major science and technology projects,which can direct the investment intentions of venture capital institutions towards investment in biopharmaceutical industrial parks[15].The government should also promote the organic combination of government capital and the capital of investment institutions by providing targeted support for a number of venture capital institutions to specialize in the direction of investing in the biopharmaceutical industry,which will build a perfect financing system[16].

3.3 Focusing on talent attraction and training

In the context of developing a knowledge-based economy,the competition for industrial innovation and development depends on the competition for outstanding talents to a large extent,and the possession of talent resources is the vitality of technological innovation[17].The introduction of talents should be based on the actual situation of enterprises.Then,they can make full use of the government’s talent introduction policy to introduce cutting-edge talents.By gathering leading scientific and technological innovation and entrepreneurial talents in the field of biopharmaceutical innovation,the talent teams can be formed,which in turn can promote the growth of talents and industrial development.At the same time,a strong atmosphere of innovation and entrepreneurship should be created through activities such as biopharmaceutical entrepreneurship competition to identify industrial innovation and entrepreneurial talents.Relying on the atmosphere of industrial innovation and development,enterprises can attract outstanding external talents.In terms of talent training,we should strengthen the joint training mode of schools and enterprises for biopharmaceutical technology talents,implement the pilot modern talent training mode of “school+public training center +enterprises”,target the training of professional talents urgently needed for the development of the biopharmaceutical industry.Besides,a reasonable talent flow mechanism should be established to promote the flow of talents between enterprises,universities and research institutes.In addition,guided by the needs of people,drawing lessons from the development model of “city-industry integration” at home and abroad,we will strengthen the construction of “hardware facilities” and “software facilities” in the biopharmaceutical industrial park area around food,clothing,housing and transportation,as well as medical and education.Lastly.improving the construction of living facilities will enhance the basic living service guarantee capacity of the parks.

3.4 Enhancing the innovation strength of the park

In biopharmaceutical industrial parks,enterprises are the absolute main force of innovation.If the parks want to keep innovating,the enthusiasm of enterprises’ independent innovation is essential.Enterprises in biopharmaceutical industrial parks should take the market as the guide and establish their own innovation system.While paying attention to the research progress of the latest technology in the field of scientific research,they can strengthen the understanding and learning of high technology,which will enhance the competitiveness of enterprises to find the optimal R&D path for their products.It also creates platforms for scientific research and innovation,transformation of achievements,business incubation and open sharing to attract scientific and technological innovation resources,accelerate the research and development of scientific and technological innovation results,and enhance the independent innovation power of the industry.

4 Conclusion

China’s biopharmaceutical industry is in a new stage of development,and the next five years will be a critical period for its transformation and upgrading.Meanwhile,it will also face more uncertainties and challenges.The biopharmaceutical industry parks are developing rapidly as a carrier for industrial development,but there are also problems such as lack of overall planning at the top level,insufficient government support,imperfect talent support services and weak innovation capacity of the parks.It is recommended that the rapid development of biopharmaceutical industrial parks and biopharmaceutical enterprises should be promoted by strengthening top-level design,increasing government support,focusing on talent attraction and enhancing the innovative strength of the parks.