Domestic new drugs run out of acceleration
Rapid mass production of viral nucleic acid detection kits, large-scale temperature measurement by infrared thermal imaging cameras, and the launch of the world’s first inactivated vaccine against the new coronavirus that received clinical trial approvals... During the new crown pneumonia epidemic, my country’s effective response to the epidemic has made the world feel Chinese wisdom has also felt the strength of China's biological drug innovation and research and development.
As a national strategic emerging industry and an important industry related to the national economy and people's livelihood, the importance of biomedicine is self-evident.
Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology stated that it is actively considering the inclusion of 5G, integrated circuits, biomedicine and other key areas in the "14th Five-Year" national special plan, further guiding enterprises to make breakthroughs in core technologies, and strengthening key cores based on major technological projects and manufacturing high-quality development projects. Technological and product research, strengthen international cooperation in the technical field, and effectively solve the "stuck neck" problem.
According to the "Thirteenth Five-Year" Biotechnology Innovation Special Plan, my country's biotechnology will achieve a comprehensive "parallel run" during the "Thirteenth Five-Year" period, and more key technologies will achieve international "leading".
In recent years, domestic policy support and innovation investment in the field of biomedicine have been continuously increasing, which has promoted the acceleration of this field.
1. From imitation to technological innovation, domestic new drugs are growing rapidly
On the morning of the weekend, 64-year-old Guo Guangyi danced a fan while doing various roller skating moves on Dazhao Square in Hohhot, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.
It's hard to imagine that he was a rectal cancer patient nowadays.
Data released by the Health Commission last year showed that in recent years, the five-year survival rate of patients with malignant tumors in my country has increased from 30.9% ten years ago to the current 40.5%, and the quality of life has also been greatly improved.
This is due to the continuous emergence of relevant new drugs and new treatment models in China.
In 2019, my country's new anti-cancer drug Zebutinib, which was independently researched and developed by China with independent intellectual property rights, was approved for marketing in the United States, achieving a "zero breakthrough" in the overseas market of China's original anti-cancer drugs.
In 2020, a variety of domestic anti-tumor drugs, including the first domestically produced third-generation lung cancer targeted drug, were approved for listing, demonstrating the rapid growth of China's pharmaceutical industry.
The pharmaceutical industry is a major part of biomedicine.
In the past, my country's drug market was dominated by generic drugs, with a small proportion of domestically produced innovative drugs.
In recent years, under the guidance of policies, the domestic pharmaceutical industry is gradually transforming from the combination of imitation and innovation to independent innovation.
Since last year, dozens of new domestic drugs have been approved for listing in China, setting a new historical record.
Among them, the "Benvimod Cream" used to treat psoriasis belongs to the world's first class 1 new drug with complete independent intellectual property rights.
Class 1 innovative drugs are drugs that have not been marketed at home and abroad, and it is difficult to develop innovative drugs.
The head of the drug's research and development team said: "Even if it is launched abroad in the future, it will be equivalent to a generic drug. We have reached the international commanding heights in this field."
Representatives include the first domestically produced HPV vaccine and my country's first self-developed biosimilar drug rituximab injection.
The listing of the former means that China has become the third country after the United States and the United Kingdom to successfully develop and produce HPV vaccines.
The significance of the latter is also very important: due to the higher technical threshold of biosimilar drugs, my country has been relatively backward in the field of biotechnology drugs, but in the past two years, the number of independent research and development of such drugs has shown a rapid growth trend.
"China's biomedicine research and development capabilities, the government's regulatory system, and the construction of the rule of law system are becoming more and more mature." Shi Yuankai, vice president of the Cancer Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said at the 2020 Technology Innovation Enterprise Frontier Summit.
Enterprises are the mainstay of technological innovation, and the achievements of new drugs are inseparable from the continuous improvement of the overall strength of my country's pharmaceutical enterprises and the continuous improvement of the internationalization of the industry.
"Domestic pharmaceutical companies are paying more and more attention to research and development, investing heavily in research and development, and the level of research and development has been continuously improved, and the gap with the international advanced level in gene therapy and cell therapy has gradually narrowed." Chen Kaixian, academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and researcher of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, said that once , Chinese pharmaceutical companies have not been seen in the top 50 global pharmaceutical companies rankings for a long time, but this year, 4 companies have been on the list.
At the same time, domestic drugs and vaccines continue to gain access to the international market, and the international transfer and cooperation of my country's research and development of innovative drugs have become more extensive.
2. From import to independent research and development, high-end medical devices are becoming localized
In this year's Hunan Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition, a medical device named "Plasma Surgery System" was awarded.
As my country's first monopolar plasma surgical equipment with independent intellectual property rights and breaking the monopoly of foreign companies, this equipment has the world's cutting-edge technology, can perform cryogenic cutting, and has little damage to human tissues and a short postoperative recovery period.
More importantly, compared with imported equipment, its price is lower.
Promoting the localization of high-end medical equipment is an important part of enhancing the competitiveness of China's biomedical industry and reducing the cost of medical care for the people.
Due to technological limitations, some of my country's high-end medical devices have been dependent on imports for a long time.
However, high-end imported medical equipment is expensive, and the grassroots cannot afford it, and the people cannot afford it. The medical level and patient health cannot be effectively guaranteed.
This situation requires my country to accelerate the localization of high-end medical equipment.
In October this year, the China International Medical Equipment Expo was held.
At the conference, many national brands and domestic high-end medical equipment appeared: China’s first ultra-high-end 640-slice CT Tianhe 640, 5G remote minimally invasive interventional operating room, intelligent vehicle-mounted mobile CT... The performance of these equipment is also remarkable Point: The pulsed strong light disinfection and sterilization robot manufactured by the domestic first technology, not only does not require preheating, the time is shorter, and it is environmentally friendly and has no residue; the first domestically produced Baiwei flat DR (medical diagnostic X-ray machine) can break through The 100-micron resolution of the eye limit, fast, high-definition imaging, meets the needs of more detailed imaging for some diagnostics.
At the same time, it also has AI intelligent diagnosis function to assist doctors in quickly identifying lesions and improve the work efficiency of doctors.
CT machine is one of the commonly used medical equipment, and its development can be said to be a microcosm of the localization of high-end medical equipment.
In the 1990s, my country's first CT machine was successfully developed, marking that my country has officially become one of the few countries that can produce full-body CT.
In 2019, China's first ultra-high-end CT with independent intellectual property rights officially obtained the medical device registration certificate issued by the National Medical Products Administration, which means that my country's independent research and development level in the field of ultra-high-end CT has entered the international level.
At the China International Medical Equipment Expo, the first domestically developed ultra-high-end 256-row CT and other domestic advanced CT equipment made a stunning appearance.
According to the person in charge of the 256-row CT research and development company, the product uses the industry's exclusive true spherical detector and quantum energy spectrum technology, has the domestic first and the world's leading magnetic levitation electromagnetic direct drive system, and has a higher performance imaging system and a more user-friendly User experience.
3. When 3D printing meets biomedicine, an emerging regenerative medicine engineering technology is born
As a multi-disciplinary and technology-intensive special industry, the biomedical industry embodies the overall industrial level and technological innovation capabilities of a country and region.
With the development of 5G, big data, artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, the medical and health industry is deeply integrated with various technologies, and is constantly moving towards intelligence and digitization.
A certain organization is damaged, and a new replacement is printed with a 3D printer.
This is not a scene in a science fiction movie, but a reality that is happening.
When 3D printing encounters biomedicine, a new regenerative medicine engineering technology-bio 3D printing was born.
This technology uses computer-aided design for three-dimensional modeling and processing of active materials to produce artificial tissues or organs with biological functions.
In 2017, my country's first high-throughput integrated biological 3D printer was released in Hangzhou.
In October this year, the world's first bio-3D printed artificial dura mater product developed by Guangzhou Maipu was approved by the State Food and Drug Administration.
Currently, a major application of bio-3D printing is the manufacture of customized medical devices such as surgical models.
On the bone tumor model using 3D printing, the local anatomical structure and scope boundary of the tumor can be observed more clearly, which helps doctors perform surgical simulations and draw the best surgical plan.
In the future, this technology will have more related applications.
The medical Internet of things generated by the integration of Internet of Things technology and the biomedical industry is also a hot spot today.
At this year's China International Medical Equipment Expo, many smart medical products based on Internet of Things technology appeared.
Qingdao Haier Biomedical Co., Ltd. realized the traceability of the entire vaccine process through the integration and innovation of IoT technology and cryogenic refrigeration technology.
At the vaccination point, from the user's number picking and calling to one-to-one vaccination, standard observation after vaccination and finally scanning the code to leave, the whole process provides information services to ensure vaccine safety and traceability.
This technical model is also applied to other medical fields besides vaccines.
In terms of safe blood use, the Smart Blood Network cooperates with an unattended self-service blood dispensing smart refrigerator to ensure the autonomous deployment of blood banks, ready for use when needed.
At present, medical institutions such as Beijing Fuwai Hospital of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences have begun to use this model.
At this expo, relevant companies also demonstrated solutions for smart health care communities based on the Internet of Things.
Based on this scheme, community residents can use the smart health check-up equipment in the community health house to easily perform health checks; they can also use home IoT devices in their homes to realize real-time detection and transmission of vital signs data, and obtain professional remote health consulting services.
Artificial intelligence, virtual simulation system... all kinds of intelligent equipment are also used in the medical industry.
The "2019 Report on the Development of Medical Artificial Intelligence" released in June this year pointed out that the rapid development of artificial intelligence has greatly improved the depth and efficiency of medical data processing.
Through the application of artificial intelligence in the medical field, it is expected to solve the pain points of the scarcity of licensed pharmacists in traditional pharmacies and improve the accuracy of medical diagnosis.
4. In line with international standards, the innovation system in the biomedical field has basically been established
In the global medical quality and access rankings published by The Lancet in 2019, China's medical level has been promoted to the top 50, and it is one of the countries with the most improved medical level.
What is driving this development?
The power of policies, talents and innovation should not be underestimated.
The biomedical industry is characterized by high technology and high investment, and the core of its rapid development lies in innovation.
In recent years, the state has continuously introduced policies to support the innovation and development of the biomedical industry.
The "Recommendations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Formulating the Fourteenth Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development and Long-Term Goals for 2035" once again pointed out that the new generation of information technology, biotechnology, new energy, new materials, high-end equipment, New energy vehicles, green environmental protection, aerospace, marine equipment and other industries.
Promote the deep integration of various industries such as the Internet, big data, and artificial intelligence, promote the development of advanced manufacturing clusters, build a number of strategic emerging industry growth engines with distinctive features, complementary advantages, and reasonable structure, and cultivate new technologies, new products, and new business formats , New model.
Various localities have also introduced policies to promote the development of biomedicine.
Not long ago, Shanghai issued the "Administrative Measures for Special Funds for Promoting the High-quality Development of Industries (Interim)", proposing to focus the special funds on the three leading industries of integrated circuits, artificial intelligence, and biomedicine, and strive to achieve innovative breakthroughs.
Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province regards biomedicine as a forward-looking leading industry, supports the construction of innovative clusters of leading industries, and guides the gathering of talents and funds in the clusters.
According to the plan of Suzhou City, by 2022, the number of biomedical companies in the city will reach 4,000, and the industrial scale will exceed 280 billion.
From 2016 to 2019, the overall size of my country's biomedicine market increased from 183.6 billion yuan to 317.2 billion yuan, and the number of biomedical companies continued to increase.
Biomedical parks have been established in various parts of the country, and biomedical industry clusters have been formed in the Bohai Rim, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, and the central and western regions.
Chen Kaixian said that the biomedical industry has become the focus of competition in the world's new round of development, and it is the strategic commanding height to promote future technological and economic development.
It is of great strategic significance for national economic development and healthy China.
It is necessary to continue to promote biomedical technology innovation as a major strategy during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
"my country's biomedicine innovation system has basically been established, and it is in line with international standards in terms of technology, management, and regulations. At the same time, various innovative elements such as talents and capital are also gathering." Chen Kaixian believes, "The development of biomedicine is in a good situation. It is the critical moment to further climb the hurdles and "struggle". Continued support will strongly promote the biomedical field to take advantage of the momentum and achieve a new historical leap." (Wang Yahui)