After getting listed successfully in Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the last month, Fosun Pharma's development strategy of focusing on its main businesses has been increasingly prominent, especially more attention was given to the building of core R&D and innovation capability in pharmacy. On November 22, 2012, Fosun Pharma announced that an innovation and R&D base would be built in Zhangjiang in order to leverage the superior resources of the world-class drug valley and build a world-class innovative pharmaceutical company, thus achieving the goal of "becoming a first-class enterprise in the world’s mainstream market" in the near future.
Positioned at high-end R&D to seize the commanding point of bio-pharmacy
"Fosun Pharma Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base" is located in the southern area of Zhangjiang High-tech Park where various developments and constructions are now getting into full swing. The functional planning of the base includes R&D headquarters, innovative drug incubatory platform, chemical innovative drug R&D center, monoclonal antibody R&D center, sustained-release and controlled-release drug delivery technological R&D center, clinical diagnosis R&D center, innovative drug pilot base, and international cooperation development center etc. In the future, the company will form an operational system centered on R&D pilot base and build new drug R&D and industrialization funds, and will establish some open platforms to introduce more international cooperation projects and continuously strengthen innovation & R&D. After the construction is completed, the base will be focusing on high-end pharmaceutical R&D as well as administration, marketing and international business headquarters of Fosun Pharma, and develop into a vigorous bio-pharmacy industrial cluster and innovation center with unique features.

It is estimated that the total fixed assets investment in the Zhangjiang project will be 3.5 billion RMB, and the construction period will be 8 years. The project is expected to achieve an industrial output value of 10 billion RMB after its completion.

"The future of pharmaceutical industry belongs to biotechnology. Fosun Pharma Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base is positioned at high-end pharmaceutical R&D, especially the highly promising biotechnology. Fosun Pharma also plans to develop an integrated platform of new drug R&D and pilot test in the future", said Mr. Chen Qiyu, Chairman of Fosun Pharma Group. Biopharmacy has become a commanding point of competing in the global pharmaceutical market. Currently the global market size of biological medicine has reached 140 billion USD. In 2011, merely the global sales of monoclonal antibody drugs had already exceeded 56 billion USD. The data from pharmaceutical research institute shows that biopharmacy will occupy over 60% of China's total pharmaceutical sales within the next 5 years.

"Fosun Pharma is committed to developing a domestic leading biotechnology R&D system, and its future R&D will focus on medicine with high technological barriers such as macromolecule biomedicine (including monoclonal antibody drugs mainly used for the treatment of tumour, arthritis, insulin analogues and vaccine etc.) as well as small-molecure innovative chemical drugs", said Chen Qiyu.
The completion of Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base will lay a solid foundation for realizing the industrialization of Fosun Pharma's innovative results. So far, Fosun Pharma has established four pharmaceutical innovation platforms of initial scale such as high-difficulty generic drugs, small-molecule innovative chemical drugs, macromolecule biomedicine and special preparations (sustained-release and controlled-release drug delivery technology etc.). As Fosun Pharma's R&D platform for macromolecule biomedicine, Shanghai Henlius Biotech Co., Ltd. (hereafter referred to as "Henlius") is committed to the R&D of various monoclonal antibody drugs. The first monoclonal antibody drug is the analogue of Rituxan, which is used to treat lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis. It is expected that the clinical trial will start in 2013, and the drug will become a new "blockbuster" of Fosun Pharma after its launch. In the future, all products of Henlius that are under R&D will complete pilot test in Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base. The advanced product quality control system will be used in order to lay a good foundation for the development of high quality monoclonal antibody drugs.

Most of the global patented drugs are possessed by international pharmaceutical enterprises, and these drugs are usually very expensive. In order to reduce the medical burden on patients and the society, Fosun Pharma makes full use of its own advantages to actively seek cooperation with world-famous pharmaceutical enterprises. Under the strategic background of realizing innovative development of Zhangjiang Biotech and Pharmaceutical Base and providing vigorous support to enterprises within the Zhangjiang Park, Fosun Pharma is able to take the preemptive opportunities for the future international competition. In September 2011, Fosun Pharma signed an agreement with Lonza Group, a leading supplier to the global pharmaceutical, healthcare and life science industries. Both sides plan to set up a joint venture in Pudong Zhangjiang and jointly develop drugs of high technological barriers that are urgently needed by the Chinese market. The total investment in the joint venture is 100 million RMB, and the drugs developed at the initial stage mainly target at the areas of anti-tumour, anti-infection and cardiovascular disease etc. In the future, both sides will seize the new opportunities of development to jointly promote the development of bio-pharmaceutical industry.

Fosun Pharma has been actively exploring the opportunities of entering the global mainstream market in the forms of final brand product and high added-value drugs. In order to improve the R&D efficiency, Fosun Pharma actively cooperates with overseas scientist teams, and outsources the early pharmaceutical R&D process to the mature markets in Europe and the U.S. After the early-stage R&D is incubated by overseas scientist teams, the middle- or later-stage R&D will be handed back to China. Currently the company has formed innovation and R&D systems in three cities such as Shanghai, Chongqing and San Francisco, and established the "24-hour R&D team" in both countries. Shanghai Zhangjiang Bio-pharmaceutical Base, which is often known as "Zhangjiang Drug Valley", has now become a typical region in China with the most prominent new drug innovation achievements, strongest innovation vitality, and the most centralized bio-pharmaceutical R&D institutions. "Fosun Pharma Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base" will rely on the geographical and talent advantages of Zhangjiang to continuously promote its innovation ability and pharmaceutical development level.

Under the mission of forging the innovative national strategy, Zhangjiang High-tech Park has converged more than 210 domestic and international well-known pharmaceutical enterprises, and dozens of national-level pharmaceutical R&D institutions and global R&D centers of international companies. As the state biotech & pharmaceutical industrial base (Shanghai), Zhangjiang High-tech Park will continuously accelerate and promote the innovative development of biomedicine.

The launch of Fosun Pharma Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D project is an important indicator that the central and southern area of Zhangjiang has stepped into a new stage of development. The development of the central and southern areas of Zhangjiang relying on science and technology and industry-city integration will lead to a new round of rapid development of Zhangjiang High-tech Park.

The central and southern area of Zhangjiang Park where Fosun Pharma Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base is located has a planning area of 11.8 square kilometers. This region will build comprehensive facilities with a total floor area of 7,250,000 m2, including 3,900,000 m2 of land area for education and scientific research, 540,000 m2 of land area for commercial and residential purposes; the green space and water space occupy 19% and 10% of the total planning area respectively. This region will be a converging place of high-end scientific research & educational institutions such as Chinese Academy of Sciences Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Park, Commercial Aircraft R&D Center, UC Berkeley etc., headquarters and R&D centers of Fosun Pharma, Novartis and HP etc., and high-end commercial and residential buildings, which combine to reflect the regional characteristics of high level and high taste.
Currently, the core park of Shanghai Zhangjiang High-tech Industrial Development Zone has stepped into the new stage of rapid development. The floor area of projects under construction totals more than 4 million m2, and the floor area of projects to be constructed amounts to 4 million m2. During the "Twelfth Five-year Plan" period, Zhangjiang will maintain 20 billion RMB of industry-related fixed asset investment per year, with a total investment scale of 100 billion RMB. In the future, Zhangjiang will be devoted to building a world-class innovative science and technology park.
Aligning with the international and innovative development strategy of Zhangjiang High-tech Park, "Fosun Pharma Zhangjiang Innovation and R&D Base" will rely on the positioning of Zhangjiang as "world-class drug valley", explore the innovation pattern and international development strategy of bio-pharmaceutical industry, and strive to develop into a vigorous innovation and R&D center in order to help Fosun Pharma realize the strategic goal of "becoming a world-class pharmaceutical enterprise".