Nanfang Daily News (Reporter/Zhang Wei) “In the new round of IT+BT development, Shenzhen precision medicine not only has life science as the engine, but also big data and IT as the engine, combined with the ‘fuel’ of capital, it will be the most powerful once it takes off.” On June 13, the first parallel forum of the 4th Shenzhen International Low Carbon City Forum, the “China-US Precision Medicine Industry and Policy Forum” was held, attracting leaders in precision medicine fields such as gene sequencing and big data processing from China and the United States. On the same day, BGI Research Institute and Harbin Institute of Technology Shenzhen School of Economics and Management also jointly launched a precision medicine industry and policy alliance initiative to the industry and will conduct economic research on life sciences.
The scale of the precision medicine industry reaches 400 billion yuan
Precision medicine is an emerging method of disease prevention and treatment that takes into account differences in personal genes, environment and living habits. Tang Jie, former deputy mayor of Shenzhen, said that biogenetic technology has developed rapidly in the past 20 years. Gene and cell science have triggered a new round of technological revolution, of which precision medicine is an important part. Precision medicine relies more on digital analysis, which extends to the IT industry, cell analysis and other industrial fields. “The growth rate of the bio-industry in the United States is six times the economic growth rate, while Shenzhen is only slightly higher than the economic growth rate. It can be seen that the domestic bio-industry, including the development of life sciences, has great potential, but it is still subject to great restrictions.”
Cai Yu, deputy director of Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission, said that in 2015, Shenzhen proposed future industries on the basis of strategic emerging industries, including life and health, marine economy and aerospace. Among them, the current industrial scale of precision medicine is 400 billion yuan, which has become a new economic growth point.
Liao Shuhua, deputy secretary of the Shenzhen Municipal Health and Family Planning Commission, said that precision medicine has achieved certain development results in Shenzhen. Many hospitals such as Shenzhen Second People’s Hospital have established relevant research institutes and medical centers. Rare diseases in the world have also been cured in Shenzhen. “Shenzhen’s plan to build a ‘strong health city’ mentions that by 2018, 10 translational medicine, 10 biomedical innovation platforms, 5 precision medicine, 5 traditional Chinese medicine, 5 ‘Internet + medical’ and 5 public health innovation platforms will be built; by 2020, 10 national and provincial-level innovation platforms will be built. Key laboratories, engineering laboratories, clinical experimental institutions, and the Shenzhen Academy of Sciences Precision Medicine Research Institute will be built to prevent malignant tumors, chronic diseases, birth defects, and rare diseases.” Liao Shuhua said that by 2025, it is hoped that the average life expectancy of Shenzhen residents will increase from the current 78 or 79 years to 82 years.
Big data analysis may become a development opportunity
Liao Shuhua believes that precision medicine in Shenzhen still has problems including insufficient innovation capabilities, lack of unified quality standards, and industry self-discipline that needs to be strengthened. Hu Xiang, chairman of Shenzhen Beike Biotechnology Co., Ltd., said that he has gained a deep understanding after working in Shenzhen for 11 years: “Precision medicine is not only scientific innovation and technological innovation, but more importantly, it requires an industrial environment.”
“Technology has matured and science has developed, but if the corresponding policy, regulatory environment, and even people’s concepts have not kept up, it will be difficult for the industry to develop.” Hu Xiang said that industrial policy and environment are the foundation for industrial development. “Starting from this year, once the infrastructure is built, it will be possible to store a large amount of cells, and at the same time, everyone’s health data and files will be available. This will transform us from a traditional biopharmaceutical and pharmaceutical company to a health management and future precision medicine company based on big data and Internet models. This has changed the growth curve of biopharmaceutical companies and also reflects the innovation environment of the entire Shenzhen.”
“We all know that prevention is more important than treatment, but why can’t it be done? Because of the lack of data collection methods and the lack of accurate analysis of big data and medical knowledge base.” Hu Xiang believes that Shenzhen may become the next important source of precision medicine. “I think there is a chance. Shenzhen has already had a supercomputing center, genetic sequencing, and a personalized treatment network. In addition, the Shenzhen government has very good innovation capabilities. I have full confidence in Shenzhen.”
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What has Shenzhen done to develop strategic emerging industries?
Cai Yu, deputy director of the Shenzhen Municipal Development and Reform Commission, pointed out that since Shenzhen took the lead in identifying biology, the Internet, new energy, new materials, cultural creativity, new generation information technology, and energy conservation and environmental protection planning as strategic emerging industries, the scale of these industries reached 2.3 trillion yuan in 2015, with an added value of more than 700 billion yuan, accounting for 17.4% of the entire GDP, and contributing 60% to economic development.
So, what exactly has the Innovation City done to develop strategic emerging industries? Cai Yu gave four lessons: first, plan the layout in advance to create a highland for emerging industries; second, make up for innovation shortcomings and build innovation carriers; third, strengthen financial support and increase investment in research and development; fourth, build an open network and strengthen resource allocation.
Shenzhen’s finances have spared no effort in investing in R&D. Last year’s R&D investment as a share of GDP was at the same level as Israel and South Korea, doubling what it was five years ago.
In view of the shortcoming that “resources of colleges and universities and research institutions are not particularly rich”, Shenzhen has adopted unconventional development of innovation carriers, including national, provincial and municipal-level engineering laboratories and engineering centers, as well as corporate technology research centers; it has built various new research institutes, including the Intelligent Robot Research Institute, the Genetic Immunology Research Institute, the Big Data Research Institute, etc., and intensively introduced high-quality educational resources, including research universities and specialty colleges such as Southern University of Science and Technology to fill the gap.
Now, with the help of strategic emerging industries, Shenzhen has integrated into the world, gathering innovative talents and strengthening resource allocation globally. It has successively participated in the international cooperation project of the neutrino experiment, the EU Horizon 2020 R&D plan, and the International Genome Project. It has established an “Innovation and Entrepreneurship Express” with Silicon Valley and Israel, and supported Huawei and ZTE in deploying 67 R&D centers around the world. At the same time, to promote the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Innovation Circle, six Hong Kong universities have established industry-university-research bases in Shenzhen.
But Cai Yu particularly emphasized that the core of the industrialization of scientific and technological achievements is the deep integration of technology and finance. There are 46,000 investment institutions in Shenzhen, with a registered capital of more than 2.7 trillion yuan. “Currently, Shenzhen has established a 30 billion yuan venture capital guidance fund, and has established 12 emerging industry funds in conjunction with the National Emerging Industries Venture Capital Guidance Fund. In addition to high-tech enterprises themselves, the scale of Shenzhen’s technology service industry has also exceeded about 100 billion yuan. This has also promoted close cooperation between industry, academia and research, and has established 45 industry-university-research alliances and 7 patent alliances in the fields of mobile Internet, robots, and cloud computing.
Source: Nanfang Daily The original title is “Developing precision medicine What are the advantages of Shenzhen”