Area home to world-class innovation

Zone leaders vow it will become the engine for Shanghai's economic development

Powered by innovation, leaders of the Zhangjiang National Innovation Demonstration Zone have vowed it will be the engine of the Shanghai's economic and technological development.

The demonstration zone, covering an area of 531 square kilometers, is home to over 700,000 high-tech startups, companies and enterprises.

A total of 375 Fortune 500 companies have chosen to take up residence in the zone, while 42 higher education institutions and 1,648 technology service centers and platforms have also set up home there.

The zone currently hosts over 2 million workers, of whom 45,000 are from abroad.

Nine industrial clusters have been formed over time since the zone was established in 1991.

Among these are companies involved in biomedicine, information technology and environment protection. Other players are in high-end equipment manufacturing, new materials, new energy and new energy vehicles.

Last year, the zone generated a massive 4.51 trillion yuan ($682 billion) in revenues with net profit amounting to 285.6 billion yuan. Its exports were worth a staggering $63.5 billion.

With a large number of expats and professionals moving into the place, Zhangjiang is fast becoming a global technology hub and home to many world-beating inventions.

In 2013, Ankon Technologies Co Ltd made the world's first nanorobot that can perform precise and delicate operations inside a patient's stomach.

Instead of the traditional gastroscopy procedure that can cause a lot of pain, patients now need simply to swallow a capsule and let the machine inside do the job.

China has a relatively high rate of gastric cancer, accounting for almost half of the world's sufferers, according to a report by Beijing Evening News.

However, if diagnosed in its early phase, the level of cure can be as high as 90 percent.

According to Ankon Technologies, due to the discomfort caused by the traditional gastric procedure, many patients previously refused to take the examination.

The company said that the capsule machine can benefit over 50 million patients in the future and raise awareness about the disease.

The Zhangjiang zone is also set to play home to one of the biggest intelligent medical data bases.

Purposed by Shanghai Biotecan Pharmaceuticals Co Ltd, the medical data center will connect data resources from home and abroad and provide them to hospitals for clinical diagnosis.

The data center will be built by Biotecan and other top-graded hospitals, the company said.

Founded in 2008, Biotecan's expertise lies in molecular diagnosis and the clinical practice of medical data.

Biotecan said it believes "data equals assets and service" and thus big data will play an important role in its industry.

Based on the network it has built up over the years, the company said it will dig deep into the value of data and transfer that value into assets, in order to propel the healthcare industry to higher levels.

Boitecan also said it believes that molecular diagnostics is one of the fast-growing areas of the international pharmaceutical sector and precision medical treatments will need to combine human resources, medical resources and industrial capital resources.

(China Daily 12/06/2017 page15)