The 2022 Third Waigaoqiao Medical Health Cooperation Summit has put intelligent manufacturing of medical devices and cell and gene therapy as two of the orientations for the Shanghai free trade zone.
The summit, held on November 16 as part of the International Biopharma Industry Week Shanghai (IBIWS) 2022, invited leading figures of the trade and administration officials of the sector to jointly discuss the industrial blueprint.
Zhang Hongtao, chief engineer of Shanghai Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, expressed the wish of developing the FTZ into an international base for intelligent manufacturing of medical devices.
Wu Qiang, deputy director of the Pudong New Area, hoped the biopharma park of the FTZ will be connected with international medical devices production while manufacturing high-end domestic medical devices.
Industrial insiders delivered speeches on domestic production of imported medical devices, the status quo of the medical device industry and the effect the current policies have on the imported medical device industry and the opportunities they offer.
Agreements on some key projects, including Carcell’s new generation cell and gene therapy incubation platform and the one-stop solution in vitro diagnosis of Merck China, were inked at the summit, with a total investment and finance amounting to 1 billion yuan (US$139.6 million).
On November 18, the Waigaoqiao Cell and Gene Therapy Alliance was officially set up.
