26 Aug 2025
Could a city best known for its classical gardens and ancient canals emerge as China’s answer to Boston – the global epicentre of biotechnology innovation?
Five years ago, the eastern city of Suzhou set forth a bold vision: to transform itself into the “Pharma Valley of China” by 2030, benchmarking its ambitions directly against Greater Boston’s world-leading life sciences ecosystem.
The city in Jiangsu province, steeped in history and famous for its ancient water towns and picturesque gardens, hosts the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park – a hub for electronic information, mechanical manufacturing, artificial intelligence (AI), nanotechnology and biomedicine.
With 3,800 biopharmaceutical companies already in town, the vision is to attract more top local and international pharmaceutical firms to set up their regional headquarters there by offering each company a subsidy of up to 60 million yuan (US$8.3 million).
By 2030, Suzhou aims to establish itself as a major biopharmaceutical innovation hub, hosting more than 10,000 companies and generating an output value exceeding 1 trillion yuan (US$139 billion).
At the 2020 Suzhou Biomedical Industry Development Conference, the city’s then Communist Party chief Lan Shaomin declared: “We are the first in China to benchmark ourselves against the global biotechnology hub of Boston … aiming to establish biomedicine as a lasting industrial landmark in Suzhou.”
To train drug innovation leaders of the future, Suzhou’s Xian Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU) co-founded its Academy of Pharmacy with the Suzhou Industrial Park government in 2020 “to help Suzhou transform into a world-class biopharmaceutical and healthcare capital”.
Fu Lei, executive dean of the XJTLU Wisdom Lake Academy of Pharmacy, spoke about the way forward in an interview with the South China Morning Post.
He said that to nurture its pharmacy and biotechnology hub, China would need a comprehensive ecosystem encompassing talent cultivation, company establishment, manufacturing, regulation and legal services.
Jinji Lake in today’s Suzhou, long renowned as an ancient city of gardens and canals.?Photo: Shutterstock
Understanding how Boston became a major biotech hub could provide valuable insights for developing a similar ecosystem in Suzhou, Fu added.
Greater Boston is home to more than 1,000 biotech companies and many globally renowned research universities, including Harvard, Boston, Northeastern, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The city of Cambridge, also in the area, is known for Kendall Square, a leading centre for biotech research and innovation that has been dubbed “the most innovative square mile on the planet”, home to hundreds of start-ups.
“The hub should feature all essential elements for biopharmaceutical development, including a pharmacy school closely connected to the industry and a platform to support research conducted by faculty,” Fu said.
“We created the missing components, such as a think tank that provides intelligence and legal services, along with training and support for intellectual property protection.”
The academy has partnered with several Chinese biotech companies – including chronic disease drug innovator PegBio, nano-biomaterial specialist BEAVER, and transdermal drug delivery firm LIANSN – to set up joint labs where students can engage in company projects alongside their studies.
Drawing on his education and work experience in the US, Fu said educating scientists to innovate therapies required a fundamentally different approach from that of existing pharmacy schools in China, whose curricula are designed for generic drug development.
“In 2016, China began transitioning from producing generic drugs to developing innovative drugs. This shift creates new educational needs, as the focus had previously been on training students mainly in formulation and pharmacology to validate the efficacy of ‘me-too’ or ‘me-better’ drugs,” he said, referring to medications that are similar to or improved versions of existing ones.
The Shantang Street scenic area in Suzhou, in eastern China’s Jiangsu province.?Photo: Xinhua
“To create innovative drugs, it is essential for researchers to have a solid understanding of medicinal chemistry, enabling them to design, synthesise and prepare substances from the ground up. Additionally, biostatistics is a critical area of expertise for scientists involved in designing and conducting clinical trials,” he said.
After earning his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University, Fu spent nearly a decade working in the United States before returning to China in 2006 to join Shanghai JiaoTong University as a professor of medicinal chemistry.
He joined XJTLU in 2021 and was named to lead the Academy of Pharmacy two years later.
According to Fu, in China, pharmaceutical companies are the main drivers of innovation, rather than research institutions. This stands in contrast to the United States, where professors often commercialise their research findings through start-ups.
Describing the situation in China as a “transitional phase”, Fu said: “Scientists in academia in China have a lot to learn from the industry, where many innovations are emerging, although academics may take on a leading role in the future.”
The industry’s leading role results from China’s historical focus on the generic drugs market, Fu explained.
“China prioritised producing generic drugs and off-patent medications to meet the healthcare needs of its vast population,” he said.
“The focus has been on producing drugs through reverse engineering, which can be done using techniques for analysing existing medications, rather than developing new technologies.”
Fu said the return of Western-educated Chinese researchers was driving China’s transition to innovative drugs.
“They brought back many advanced technologies and equipment, allowing domestic scientists to explore new methods for drug innovation,” he said.
“While transitioning to an innovation-first approach will take time, China has been developing rapidly, with leading-edge use of equipment and innovative ideas,” Fu added, pointing to new molecules developed in China that are now being researched abroad.
“China’s patent protection has also significantly improved, encouraging scientists to register their new discoveries domestically.”
Fu, who conducted drug discovery and development research on anticancer and anti-cardiovascular disease drugs at a biopharma company in California, said: “The appeal of China lay in its potential; I saw it as a blank canvas.”
“I was drawn and motivated by the opportunities for professional growth in China and substantial policy support for talent. There were many chances to apply and share my knowledge, which reinforced my sense of purpose,” he said.
Fu said the academy’s first batch of biostatistics undergraduates completed their studies this year, with around 50 of them receiving more than 200 master’s and PhD programme offers in all from international universities, including Harvard and Stanford.
“While the undergraduate programme focuses on general education and preparing students for further studies, graduate students receive specialised training in areas including biostatistics, medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutical sciences, with additional pathways such as on AI drug discovery and development,” Fu said.
AI would be transformative in pharmaceutical research, Fu said, highlighting the academy’s collaborations with AI experts to design specific compounds aimed at newly discovered drug targets.
He cited a project using AI to monitor the movements of C. elegans, a type of 1mm (0.03inch) long roundworm commonly used to model neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.
“Traditionally, scientists would observe these microscopic animal models under a microscope to assess the effects of medication being tested in an experiment. Meticulously recording details like swimming patterns and movements can be exhausting,” Fu said.
“With AI, we can monitor many worms simultaneously – far more than by researchers observing them one by one. This means we can conduct 15 or more experiments at the same time, shortening the duration from one month to just two days.
“We are developing a device that digitises images and analyses each nematode to study its behavioural changes. By leveraging AI, we can accelerate drug screenings and research on drug effects.”
He also said the capability to analyse vast amounts of data – something humans might struggle with – represented a potential breakthrough in new material design.
“Training AI to understand the biology and clinical significance behind the data holds great potential for advancing the development of targeted drug delivery systems and innovative drugs.”
26 Aug 2025