In order to implement the Planning Outline of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area (GBA) and deepen synergy among Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, on the afternoon of June 10th, the Guanzhou International Bio-Forum, which is known as “Davos” in the field of biomedicine, was successfully held in Guangzhou International Bio-Island. The (3rd) Guanzhou International Bio-Forum was hosted by Guangzhou Municipal Government and undertaken by the Administrative Committee of Guangzhou Development District. With the theme “Focusing on Bio-economy and Collaborating on Innovation in the GBA” the forum gathered more than 600 experts, scholars and business leaders from the biomedical field around the world, who jointly take pulse of the industry frontier and explore development of biomedical industry, schools and research in the GBA.

The opening ceremony of the forum was hosted by Zhiying Chen, Member of the Standing Committee of Guangzhou Municipal Committee of CPC and executive deputy mayor of Guangzhou. Shuofu Zhang, Member of the Standing Committee of Guangdong Provincial Committee and Secretary of Guangzhou Municipal Committee of CPC, and Yawei Zhou, Member of the Standing Committee of Guangzhou Municipal Committee and Secretary of the Party Working Committee of Guangzhou Development District, delivered speeches at the opening ceremony.  Guests participating in the forum include Weizhong Qin, Vice Governor of Guangdong Province, Ruijun Wang, Director of Department of Science and Technology of Guangdong Province and other provincial, municipal and district leaders, Academician Gang Pei, Yigong Shi, Fuchu He, Guohui Su, Tao Xu and Yeguang Chen of Chinese Academy of Sciences and other top domestic scientists, well-known foreign experts, entrepreneurs and their research teams such as Karen Fallen, Senior Vice President of Lonza Pharma & Biotech, and Shuki Gleitman, former Chief Scientist and Director of Israel Ministry of Industry, Trade and Labor, as well as industry experts and scholars from Hong Kong and Macau, including Yitao Wang, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine at the University of Macau. The forum has reach a huge scale with unprecedentedly high level of masters.

In his speech, Academician Gang Pei said that Guangzhou wanted to build high standards of talent policy for the industry, pointed out that "talents will come once the right policy is in place,” and wished the Guanzhou Forum could be better and better in the future to facilitate the bio-industry with full momentum in Guangzhou. Academician Yigong Shi, on the 35th anniversary of the establishment of the Guangzhou Development Zone, encouraged the biopharmaceutical industry to uphold the spirit of reform and innovation, and wish that Guangzhou Development Zone could “be born for reform, grow with openness, and gain strength by innovation.”

Before the themed forum started, important ceremonies were held at the conference, i.e. the unveiling ceremony of the “GBA Innovation Center for High-Performance Medical Device”, the signing ceremony for the Institute of Advanced Regenerative Medicine Studies between CUHK and Guangzhou Regenerative Medicine and Health Guangdong Laboratory (GRMH-GDL), and the launching ceremony of the biomedical devices project of GRMH-GDL.

As representatives from GDL, Duanqing Pei, Executive Deputy Director of GRMH-GDL, signed the co-construction agreement for the Institute of Advanced Regenerative Medicine Studies. The establishment of the institute will further promote cooperation between the two on scientific research, focusing on basic research of stem cells and regenerative medicine, in line with the national policy of developing the GBA. It will strive to build a world-class scientific research center, aiming to become an important part of the world-class technology innovation center to be built in GBA. The both sides planned to carry out joint research on regenerative medicine and health and to train doctoral students in the institute of advanced studies. The GRMH-GDL will provide funds to support operations of the institute and joint training of doctoral students. In addition, the GRMH-GDL medical device project that was kicked off in the same period was planned to fund a number of R&D projects on key biomedical device technologies that have positive market prospects and potential to resolve technical “bottlenecks” in China.

The themed forum was hosted by Guohui Su, Academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences. Academician Fuchu He and Tao Xu of Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Yitao Wang, Director of the State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine at the University of Macau, and other experts have given brilliant keynote speeches around hot topics of the biomedical industry.