Li Zheng, a returnee from the United States——
Starting a business in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area
Wang Wei
In the High-tech Zone of Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province, a building covering an area of about 16,000 square meters has taken shape - this is an innovation base project laid by Zhuhai Tongqiao Medical Technology Co., Ltd. in November 2022. It will be a "future factory" after completion "It will be used for the development and production of neurovascular intracranial implantation interventional medical devices.
Li Zheng, a returnee from the United States, is the general manager of this company. He has been engaged in the R&D and manufacturing of medical devices for more than 10 years and has independently developed 36 products. Among them, the thrombectomy stent was awarded the "Innovative Medical Device Product" by the State Food and Drug Administration.
He said that as an entrepreneurial young man who has returned from studying abroad, he must work hard to build an enterprise bridge of "medical-industrial cooperation, industry-university-research-application" and "have the courage to shoulder heavy responsibilities, gnaw hard bones, and pick up 'hot potatoes'."
From "5 people" to "400 people"
In 2004, Li Zheng went to North Carolina State University in the United States to pursue a PhD, specializing in mechanical engineering.
"We cherish the opportunity to study abroad very much. We spend almost every day in the laboratory, devoting ourselves to experimental research and being hungry for knowledge." Li Zheng said.
As his research deepened, his scientific research results were published in multiple international journals.
"My daughter was just born at the time. For me, the dual pressure of studying and raising a family suddenly increased. Although the professor helped provide a teaching assistant job, I still had to wash the dishes and deliver takeaways every weekend. To subsidize the family income. It was really hard at the time, but my lovely daughter also inspired me to work hard and be enterprising." That difficult yet heart-warming experience left a deep impression on Li Zheng.
After graduating with his doctorate in 2007, Li Zheng joined a world-renowned medical device company as the main project leader and R&D personnel, and accumulated experience in product R&D and manufacturing, which laid the foundation for his subsequent entrepreneurship.
At that time, the development of the global medical device industry entered a blowout state.
Some foreign companies have expanded rapidly, and the domestic high-end implantable medical device field is almost monopolized by imported products. The same is true in the cardiovascular and cerebrovascular fields.
At that time, domestic cerebrovascular interventional equipment was heavily dependent on imports and was prohibitively expensive for many people. Li Zheng was eager to do his best to change this situation.
In 2016, with the support of the Zhuhai High-tech Zone government's policy on introducing scientific and technological innovation enterprises, Li Zheng founded Zhuhai Tongqiao Medical Technology Co., Ltd., focusing on the field of implantable interventional medical devices that replace imported ones with domestic ones.
When the company was first established, the start-up team had only 5 people and the office space was less than 200 square meters.
The desk was borrowed, and an old sofa was left by someone else. There was no experimental or R&D space, only a few old computers... "On a business trip, in order to save money, we stayed in a cheap express hotel in the suburbs and transferred 2 It took three buses and three subways to get to the destination. One of my colleagues who was traveling with me at that time has now become the deputy chief engineer of our company. The experience of working together made us the best brothers." Recalling the early days of starting a business Li Zheng was filled with emotion during these difficult days.
In 2018, the thrombectomy stent product developed by Li Zheng and his team entered the clinical stage and needed to produce some clinical samples. It happened that the company recruited the first batch of production and quality inspection personnel, most of whom were fresh graduates.
In order to better understand the product production process, Li Zheng sent them to Hangzhou to study.
"The team was small at that time, and fresh graduates were sent abroad as soon as they joined the company. Their parents almost mistaken them for a 'MLM organization.'" Later, these team members were invited to participate in the company's listing bell, and Li Zheng took them to Hangzhou again.
“Looking back at these, I feel they are special and precious,” he said.
Over the years since starting his business, Li Zheng has rarely had time to rest.
He spends a lot of time studying surgical cases, treatment strategies and equipment selection for interventional treatment of various intracranial vascular diseases, and strives to overcome technical problems.
He said: "The treatment of cerebrovascular disease is a race against death. The sooner we have research and development results, the sooner we can benefit patients."
Focus on R&D work
Today, the company has grown to nearly 400 people, with R&D personnel accounting for 1/4, of which more than 70% are highly educated personnel.
In just a few years, the company has rapidly grown into a national-level specialized and new "little giant" enterprise and a high-tech enterprise.
Li Zheng led the team to gradually expand outward based on the Zhuhai headquarters, establishing R&D centers in Guangzhou, Hangzhou, and Suzhou, and setting up sales offices in Beijing and Shanghai.
As of the end of August last year, it had obtained 12 Class III medical device registration certificates, 2 Class II medical device registration certificates, and 3 products had obtained EU CE certification.
“In recent years, the country’s requirements for independent intellectual property rights and innovativeness of innovative medical device products have continued to increase. This is an opportunity and a challenge for our R&D-oriented enterprises. It requires us to work harder to compete with international products in R&D, quality, and speed. "Li Zheng said that on the one hand, the company is deeply exploring clinical needs and quickly creating differentiated and innovative products to meet diverse treatment needs.
On the other hand, in order to continue to maintain stable production quality and efficiency, the team is also working on the mass production of a number of newly launched products and the expansion of production capacity of mature products in the R&D and manufacturing processes.
While focusing on localized operations, Li Zheng also pays more attention to overseas markets, hoping to further enhance the brand influence of his products in overseas markets.
Today, the company is exploring new business models, leveraging its own technology platform and manufacturing capabilities to cooperate with overseas brands to bring more growth opportunities.
"In the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, a hot land for innovation and entrepreneurship, young talents must dare to innovate and start businesses, and dare to transform their innovative ideas into reality." Li Zheng said, "We must focus on solving the 'stuck' problem of key technologies and promote Implement technological achievements into industries and strive to achieve domestic substitution and industrial breakthroughs." (People's Daily Overseas Edition)