Zhangjiang Pharma Valley fuels biotech momentum

Based on its sound industrial ecosystem and strong policy support, Zhangjiang Pharma Valley in Shanghai is witnessing accelerated development in cutting-edge technologies such as innovative medical devices, artificial intelligence-based drug research and development, and synthetic biology, said industry mavens.

Surgical robot company Shanghai MicroPort MedBot reached a milestone in the first half of the year, as new orders for its Toumai surgical robots surpassed the long dominance of an overseas brand for the first time. As of June, Toumai robots had received over 300 cumulative orders from Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and Africa, while the number of cumulative installations has exceeded 200 units.

As the world's first and only remotely operated surgical platform to receive regulatory approval, Toumai remote surgical robots have obtained a green light in more than 50 countries and regions.

According to Li Shuxiang, vice-president of MicroPort MedBot, surgical robots integrate the disciplines of precision mechanics, AI, medical imaging, control algorithms and clinical medicine. As they involve longer research cycles and high technical barriers, they are more demanding of innovation resources.

With over three decades of development, Zhangjiang Pharma Valley has built a complete innovation ecosystem covering basic research, incubators, accelerators, clinical research, regulatory review and filing support, industrialization and commercial promotion. This is crucial to the independent innovation and international development of domestically produced high-end surgical robots, he said.

Synthetic biology company Kangma Biotech has benefited greatly from the "ultra-high innovation density" in Zhangjiang Pharma Valley, as all the necessary resources can be found within one kilometer, said the company's founder Guo Min.

Kangma Biotech is feeding into the local industrial ecology by opening its research platform to pharmaceutical startups and smaller teams. It has also teamed up with other entities in the Valley to jointly conduct pilot-scale production, manufacturing and regulatory filing.

"The place provides seamless integration of basic research, drug discovery, clinical development and industrialization. This is the very foundation on which companies manage to achieve disruptive technological breakthroughs in underlying manufacturing and hardcore technology," he said.

Echoing Guo is Wang Jue, vice-president of Insilico Medicine, who said that innovation resources in the Valley are accessible "within the range of a shared bicycle". In 2020, Insilico Medicine joined an incubator in Zhangjiang and developed the Pharma.AI platform to provide innovative drug solutions for unmet medical needs in areas such as fibrosis, oncology, immunology, pain, obesity and metabolic disorders.

The close ties forged between basic research, drug discovery, pre-clinical research, process development, regulatory filing, clinical trials and industrial collaboration in Zhangjiang Pharma Valley can largely improve the efficiency of AI-driven pharmaceutical R&D collaboration and outcome commercialization, said Wang.

Shanghai's biomedical industrial value approached 1.04 trillion yuan ($153 billion) in 2025, standing above the 1-trillion-yuan mark for the first time. The output value contributed by innovative pharmaceutical and medical device enterprises stood at 20.9 percent by the end of 2025, up 12.8 percentage points from the end of 2020, and climbing to 23 percent in the first five months of this year.

Furthermore, Shanghai has seen a record 19 Class-3 domestic innovative medical devices approved so far this year, ranking first in the country and more than doubling the whole-year figure in 2025.

shijing@chinadaily.com.cn