China Focus: Pharmaceutical sector powers ahead with innovation at heart

BEIJING, Aug. 7 (Xinhua) -- At Baheal Pharma Group's headquarters in Beijing, cutting-edge medical technologies such as a fully maglev artificial heart and intelligent radiotherapy systems are on display in a sleek exhibition hall.

Behind these devices lies a broader ambition, namely to reinvent how medicines and medical devices are developed and deployed -- and not just by one company, but by an entire country.

As China accelerates its cultivation of new quality productive forces, Baheal, a private Chinese pharmaceutical company, has emerged as a telling example of how enterprise-led innovation, combined with robust government support and extensive collaboration with research institutions, is transforming the pharmaceutical sector.

LAB TO CLINIC: INCUBATING INNOVATION

"Each medicine or device here is the result of blending leading-edge lab work with real-world clinical needs," said Fu Gang, chairman of Baheal, adding that the company pursues innovation to connect biomedical research with clinical practice.

Baheal aims to serve as a platform for translating upstream scientific research, particularly original innovations, into downstream clinical applications -- in areas such as cardiovascular diseases, oncology and advanced diagnostics.

According to Fu, the company has partnered with prestigious Chinese hospitals and research institutions, such as Fuwai Hospital and Peking University Health Science Center, to identify high-potential, early-stage research projects.

Baheal adopts a tiered investment approach. It supports early-stage projects by funding the establishment of joint research laboratories. Once the projects show promising progress, it ramps up investment to launch joint ventures and deliver the technologies to the market.

Baheal has so far incubated a cluster of leading startups, including BrioHealth, which independently developed a fully magnetic levitation artificial heart, also referred to as a ventricular assistance device. This device, commercialized in 2022, has been used in implantation surgeries in dozens of hospitals across China.

Fu told Xinhua that as China promotes the development of high-tech, high-efficiency and high-quality new quality productive forces, the country's pharmaceutical sector must rely on technological innovations, especially original innovations, to achieve high-quality growth. These medical innovations will not only serve the Chinese market but will also benefit international markets.

DIGITAL, SMART TRANSFORMATION

Besides incubating innovation, Baheal is among a growing number of Chinese companies that are spearheading the digital and intelligent transformation of the country's pharmaceutical sector.

Baheal Home, an app-based smart health management platform, integrates wearable health devices, real-time data monitoring and telemedicine services. With just a tap on a smartphone, users can access home test results, receive prescriptions and consult doctors online when needed. It has been designed to provide more personalized, precise and convenient health management services to users.

The company said its ECG monitor, which connects to the platform, has been sold to more than 25,000 institutions and individual users.

According to a plan issued in April this year by seven central government departments, large-scale pharmaceutical enterprises in China will essentially achieve full coverage of digital-intelligent transformation by 2030.

This plan also outlines a strategic push to integrate AI and next-generation information technologies into pharmaceutical production chains, so as to enhance corporate competitiveness, improve drug quality and safety, and strengthen supply chain resilience.

DEVELOPMENT DRIVING FORCES

Behind Baheal's development is an enabling environment as the government of Mentougou District, where the company is based, has offered favorable policies and financial incentives.

Once a traditional mining area in Beijing's western suburbs, Mentougou has in recent years embraced a major industrial transformation, shifting its focus toward innovation-driven sectors such as cardiovascular pharmaceuticals and medical devices.

It has fostered a medical technology ecosystem and hosts an industrial cluster focused on innovative drugs and medical devices in the cardiovascular field -- which the district calls the "China Cardiology Park."

In 2023, the district government partnered with Baheal to launch a 1-billion-yuan (about 139.2 million U.S. dollars) fund to support healthcare startups in the district, further strengthening the government-private partnership.

Earlier this year, Beijing introduced a comprehensive package comprising 32 new measures to further spur the development of the city's innovative pharmaceutical industry.

This policy package includes measures to slash the clinical trial start-up time to under 20 weeks, launch a fully automated biobank for key diseases, develop AI models for pathology and drug development, and launch a 50-billion-yuan healthcare industry fund.

The 2025 policy package builds on last year's reforms -- which drove 8.7 percent year-on-year growth in Beijing's healthcare sector -- leading to its total value exceeding 1 trillion yuan for the first time. ■