HKU launches biotech innovation platform in Bay Area

The drive to cultivate mainland-Hong Kong biotechnology cooperation in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area has borne further fruit as the University of Hong Kong on Monday announced it had established a biotechnology innovation platform in Zhongshan.

In cooperation with the Guangdong Pharmaceutical University, the platform is expected to become a national-level technology startup incubator. It aims to host at least 50 spinoff companies and commercialize the results of at least 10 HKU research projects within five years.

Andy Hor Tzi-sum, vicepresident and pro-vice-chancellor (research) at HKU — who is in charge of the project — told a press conference the platform is the university’s first-ever biotech cooperation project on the mainland.

The platform will focus on key areas including cancer treatment, medical devices and infectious disease treatment, explained Kim Shincheul, director of the Technology Transfer Office of HKU who joined Hor at the press conference.

Located at the Torch HighTech Industrial Zone, a national health technology park in Zhongshan city, Guangdong province, the platform will have three core units — incubation facility, joint-laboratory and technology transfer unit.

Hor said GDPU is an ideal facilitator to commercialize HKU’s cutting-edge research outcomes as it is one of the nation’s three pharmaceutical universities boasting expertise in translational medicine development and in operating and incubation facility.

Moreover, steering a pharmaceutical industry alliance with 200 members — including enterprises, associations

and educational institutes — the GDPU could provide an extensive network of potential collaboration partners for Hong Kong researchers, he added.

Soon after the platform’s establishment on Friday, the GDPU-HKU Innovations Platform attracted seven startups, achieving the first of its objectives, Hor said.

Besides the platform, a satellite branch of HKU’s Partner State Key Laboratory of Pharmaceutical Biotechnology will also be set up at GDPU, HKU said.

With support from mainland governments at all levels — 940,000 yuan ($142,000) set aside for the incubation facility and 100 million yuan designated for the joint-laboratory — the project has sufficient funding for the following three years, Hor said.

An additional 500 million yuan has also been reserved for future investment if the project does well.