The China Gene Medicine Valley. [Photo/cgmv.cn]
Ouhai district in East China's Wenzhou is speeding up the construction of the China Gene Medicine Valley so as to play a more important role in Wenzhou's health industry.
The city is currently aiming to raise the value of its health industry to 100 billion yuan ($15.78 billion) by 2025.
The valley, which was established in 2019, spans 5 square kilometers and represents an investment of 15 billion yuan.
A number of cutting-edge life science projects and teams have been attracted to the valley, including Li Xiaokun's R&D team for growth factor medicine. Li is an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the principal of the Wenzhou University.
Uren Biotech, which was attracted to the valley in June 2020, focuses on providing services such as storage, preparation and R&D of stem cells and immune cells as well as the R&D of gene technology and biopharmaceuticals.
The company is currently working with the Hematology Department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University. The latter is using Uren Biotech's CAR-T technology, which was authorized by the China National Intellectual Property Administration last year, to treat patients with multiple myeloma.
"Our new medicine will become much more affordable than the current 1.2 million yuan ($189,000) per injection. This will enable the people of Wenzhou to access new drugs of good quality and of a low price," said Zheng Peiduo, chairman of Uren Biotech.
Statistics show that the valley currently has 6,053 professionals, including two academicians, 69 national or provincial leading talents, and 187 doctoral and 589 master's graduates.
The 125 biopharmaceutical enterprises in the valley generated operating and tax revenues of 10.23 billion yuan and 548 million yuan in 2021, up 34.7 percent and 31.4 percent year-on-year respectively.
