Qionghai, Hainan, March 27, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, at the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2019, Leif Johansson, Global Chairman of AstraZeneca, and Wang Lei, Global Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca and President of International Operations and China, were invited to participate in the conference. They focused on technological innovation hotspots and cutting-edge social issues such as AI+, healthy aging, and the development of life sciences against the backdrop of cross-regional collaboration, engaging in in-depth exchanges with government leaders, academic representatives, and industry pioneers. During the conference, AstraZeneca signed a strategic cooperation memorandum with Wuxi High-Tech Zone, officially announcing its comprehensive support for the Wuxi Municipal Government and Wuxi High-Tech Zone in building the Wuxi International Life Science Innovation Park. By joining forces with various stakeholders to co-create a life science ecosystem, AstraZeneca aims to pool global wisdom to benefit the Healthy China initiative.
Themed “Shared Destiny, Joint Action, and Common Development,” this year’s annual conference established a multi-stakeholder platform for comprehensive discussions on pathways to sustain the momentum of the global economy and globalization through openness and innovation. “As China advances all-around opening-up and deeply implements its innovation-driven development strategy, I believe that numerous sectors will usher in new opportunities for international cooperation and unleash robust innovative vitality,” said Leif Johansson, Chairman of AstraZeneca, at the event. “AstraZeneca will continue to focus on innovation and collaboration in China. The conclusion of this partnership benefits from our substantial accumulation of innovation experience in the Chinese market and aligns closely with our firm commitment to open innovation and active participation in building the local innovation ecosystem.”
As another strategic innovation initiative by AstraZeneca following its Commercial Innovation Center, the Wuxi International Life Science Innovation Park, developed in collaboration with the Wuxi Municipal Government and Wuxi High-Tech Zone, will serve innovative companies both domestically and internationally. It aims to build an incubation and innovation platform integrating early-stage R&D, innovation incubation, achievement commercialization, intelligent showcases, and professional services across the life sciences sector, thereby constructing a healthcare innovation ecosystem. This ecosystem will bring together partners from government, enterprises, medical institutions, research organizations, and universities both within China and abroad, providing comprehensive shared services to innovative companies on the platform—including laboratories and equipment, platforms and services, and an innovation-sharing community—leveraging global innovation expertise to deliver innovative solutions that improve patients’ lives in China, covering the entire lifecycle of life sciences and whole-disease-course management.
At the R&D level, the platform will leverage AstraZeneca’s global network to foster close exchange and collaboration with other countries and regions, share value-driven insights, and accelerate the innovation and R&D process. Furthermore, in its operations, AstraZeneca will fully utilize its global industrial resources and commercial capabilities, along with its in-depth understanding of the Chinese market and extensive experience in incubating innovative achievements, to provide enterprises with end-to-end support ranging from early-stage project development to commercialization. Currently, the platform’s initiatives have received enthusiastic responses from strategic partners in the United Kingdom, Sweden, India, and other countries. Mr. Steve Bates, Chief Executive Officer of the BioIndustry Association (BIA) of the United Kingdom, also attended the signing ceremony of the strategic cooperation memorandum.
“AstraZeneca remains committed to advancing ‘patient-centric’ open innovation. The upcoming International Life Sciences Innovation Park will further support this objective and help upgrade the existing healthcare innovation ecosystem, facilitating AstraZeneca’s strategic shift from a traditional pharmaceutical company to an innovative platform enterprise providing whole-disease-course management solutions for patients,” said Wang Lei, Global Executive Vice President of AstraZeneca, and President of International Markets and China. “Wuxi serves as the forefront for AstraZeneca’s cross-sector collaborations and the construction of an innovation ecosystem. Our Health Internet of Things (HIoT) strategy was launched here, expanding its reach across China and along the ‘Belt and Road’ routes, thereby benefiting patients in China and worldwide. These experiences have laid a solid foundation for us to build an international innovation incubation platform and fully unleash the potential of open innovation. Leveraging this platform, we will continue to work hand in hand with the Wuxi Municipal Government and the High-Tech Zone Government, capitalizing on Wuxi’s robust pharmaceutical industry base to pool global wisdom and accelerate the translation of scientific innovations from R&D into commercial practice, ultimately bringing greater benefits to more patients.”
Huang Qin, Mayor of Wuxi Municipal People’s Government, stated at the conference, “It is a great pleasure to join hands with AstraZeneca once again to further explore innovative models of cooperation in the life sciences sector. We look forward to this partnership fully leveraging the respective strengths of both parties, promoting academic exchange and collaboration in this field—particularly with countries and regions along the ‘Belt and Road’—advancing synergistic innovation among various factors, and accelerating the translation of scientific and technological achievements into practical applications. We are confident that the Wuxi International Life Science Innovation Park will harness its platform agglomeration effect to attract more leading scientific and innovative forces from home and abroad to Wuxi, strengthen the local medical industry cluster, and collectively drive the in-depth implementation of our city’s innovation-driven development strategy, thereby establishing Wuxi as a renowned hub for medical innovation.”