A general view of Zhongguancun Life Science Park. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

Beijing's life science and pharmaceutical base has been sharpening its competitiveness by fighting the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 and contributing its part in the nation and world's joint effort to fight the virus.

Zhongguancun Life Science Park located in Future Science City in Beijing's Changping district is home to the city's 10 certificated third-party nucleic acid testing firms and has become one of the areas in the city with the most institutes of this kind, according to Jin Yi, deputy director of the Future Science City administration body.

The park was able to test as many as millions of nucleic acid samples in the peak period of the outbreak in Beijing and some of the firms gave a helping hand to other places beyond Beijing. The first nucleic acid test reagent approved in Beijing amid the outbreak of the pandemic in the beginning of 2020 was produced in the park.

Founded in 2020, the park has been expanding its functions and facilitating enterprises stationed there to grow. In 2020, an area of 10.26 square kilometers in the park and nearby was allocated as science innovation area of Beijing free trade pilot zone.

Neighboring to Beijing's high education clusters of Haidian district, where Peking University and Tsinghua University are located, the park is never in short of talent or research institutes.

Wang Sizhen, CEO of Genetron Health, a precision oncology platform specializing in cancer molecular profiling, said the company chose Changping because of the support from both the governmental and the park level. Genetron has transformed its research into production and established its own marketing team in the park, according to Wang.

The park worked with clinical research institutes and established Beijing's first research hospital focusing on clinical transformation to help startups go market.

BeiGene was listed in NASDAQ in 2016. [Photo provided to chinadaily.com.cn]

The story of BeiGene, one of China's leading biotech enterprises and co-founded by National Institute of Biological Sciences, Beijing and a clinical CRO (contract research organization) enterprise, is a story between scientists and entrepreneurs. Founded in 2010, BeiGene has been listed in NASDAQ, Hong Kong and Shanghai, the first Chinese enterprise to reach this mark. A new research and development center covering 20,000 square meters has been approved and the construction will start in September.

InnoCare Pharma was listed in 2020, only five years after operating in the park. Its first breakthrough drug got approved by the nation before listing.

According to Jin, there are more than 50 ventures co-founded by scientists and entrepreneurs like BeiGene in the park. "Scientific research can be transformed into products only by linking them to capital, intermediary services and CRO services," said Jin.

There are more than 500 medical and health enterprises in the park and more than 800 in Changping district. The district is aiming to earn more than 140 billion yuan from the medical and health industry and an area of more than 10,000 mu to locate the industry by the end of the 14thFive-Year Plan (2021-25).