Merck Partners with Shanghai Pudong New Area to Establish Merck Shanghai Innovation Hub

Shanghai, July 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ --July 11, 2020Merck, a global leading technology company, signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Shanghai Pudong New Area at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. Both parties will jointly commit to building an open innovation platform with global influence—the “Merck Shanghai Innovation Hub.” Merck plans to establish this innovation hub in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, and collaborate with Shanghai Pudong New Area to leverage their respective industry strengths and incubate and accelerate innovative projects. Isabel De Paoli, Chief Strategy Officer of Merck Group, and Guan Xiaojun, Deputy Director of Shanghai Pudong New Area, signed the strategic cooperation agreement via cloud signing.

Merck’s Shanghai Innovation Hub will be located at the core of the innovation ecosystem in Zhangjiang Science City, Pudong New Area, Shanghai, surrounded by numerous multinational pharmaceutical companies, national-level research institutions, and thousands of local innovative small and medium-sized technology enterprises. Covering an area of over 2,000 square meters, the Merck Shanghai Innovation Hub is equipped with a project incubation and acceleration zone, a digital exhibition center, and creative inspiration workshops. Over the next three years, the Innovation Hub plans to fully leverage Merck’s globally leading science and technology industry resources alongside the innovative ecosystem resources of Zhangjiang, Shanghai, to introduce high-quality innovative projects. It will incubate and accelerate innovation in pharmaceuticals and healthcare, life sciences, performance materials, and related emerging fields such as artificial intelligence. By maximizing its platform capabilities, the hub will empower startups and university research projects in these sectors, accelerating the translation and commercialization of scientific and technological achievements, thereby becoming a key vehicle for the collaboration and sharing of innovation resources.

Isabel De Paoli, Chief Strategy Officer of Merck Group, stated, “China is a strategic market of paramount importance to Merck, and the Company places significant emphasis on its innovation investments in the country. The establishment of an innovation hub in Zhangjiang, Shanghai, represents a major collaborative innovation initiative between Merck’s China Innovation Center and local partners, with both parties working together to incubate and accelerate the latest innovative achievements.”

Merck China Innovation Center was announced in 2018 and officially opened and commenced operations in Shanghai and Guangdong Province in 2019. It is dedicated to working closely with partners within China’s innovation ecosystem to identify, incubate, and invest in innovative projects both within and beyond Merck’s existing business portfolio, particularly in high-potential areas in the Chinese market such as AI-enabled health solutions, organoids, liquid biopsy technologies, cultured meat, bioelectronics, and neural network chips. In 2019, Merck China Innovation Center jointly established the Merck-Zhangjiang AI Healthcare Innovation Laboratory with Shanghai Zhangjiang Group. In June 2020, it launched the “AI + Innovation Supernova Excellence Program” to identify high-quality projects in the fields of AI plus healthcare and AI plus hardware. The planned establishment of the Merck Shanghai Innovation Base will further enrich and enhance Merck China Innovation Center’s support for startups, enterprises, and scientific and technological institutions in terms of incubation and acceleration, project development, and talent cultivation.

The signing ceremony was conducted virtually during the World Artificial Intelligence Conference. Mr. Stefan Oschmann, CEO of Merck Group, delivered opening remarks via video, stating that artificial intelligence technology is a crucial cornerstone for addressing current challenges. He affirmed that Merck is committed to working closely with local Chinese partners to develop new solutions, provide materials for AI-driven next-generation computing, and create a smarter, more interconnected world.