the 2015 shenzhen international biotechnology (bt) summit and biological/health industry expo will be held from sept. 23 to 25 in shenzhen, according to a press conference held yesterday.
the summit of this year will present attendees with a comprehensive discussion of global bt development, with two keynote speeches, two high-end dialogues and eight professional forums scheduled.
the summit will also highlight the commercialization of bt research findings by introducing the one-to-one cooperation system. outstanding bt experts and it entrepreneurs will be invited to explore the convergence of the two industries, while government officials will talk about the regulations of biomedicine.
over 40,000 professional audience members, such as professors and lab technicians from asia, america, europe and oceania, will participate in the summit and expo, while ordinary visitors can sign up for the attendance via the organizer's official wechat account.
shenzhen has hosted the biological/health industry expo for three years, while the first international bt summit was held last year. "there are over 7,000 biological companies based in shenzhen, with over 300,000 employees and the overall registered fund of 40 billion yuan (us$6.42 billion) by june," said li ganming, the deputy secretary general of the shenzhen municipal government.
li added that the annual growth rate of shenzhen's biological industry was up to 16 percent in the past five years, which was higher than the growth rate of shenzhen's gdp.
zhu yanmei, the spokesperson of bgi, a genomics research institution based in shenzhen, said bgi is transforming its research platform into a business incubator of startup companies. she added shenzhen is the perfect breeding ground for bt startups with favorable policies and vigorous capital, while the business environment and industry chain are fully developed.
"the bt industry should have its own open sources platform to merge hardware, software and wetware resources, which will be an optimized blend of strengths for bt and it industries," said zhu.
hu xiang, the founder of beike biotechnology, said the global bt research has placed emphasis on gene and cell therapies in recent years, but china still lags behind international organizations in turning its lab achievements into clinical applications, despite its leading role in bt academic findings.
"it reflects the lack of relevant laws, supervision mechanism and transformation platform for the bt industry in china," hu said, adding that beike biotechnology will introduce the standards for its regional cell preparation center by the end of this year, which they hope will be applied as a local standard in shenzhen.
