Innovation drives Wudang pharmaceutical industry into high gear

In recent years, Wudang district in Guiyang, capital of Southwest China's Guizhou province, has positioned health and pharmaceuticals as its leading industry. Efforts to cultivate talent, invest in research, and construct platforms have paid off.

Wudang now has 12 pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises above a designated size, including Jianxing Pharmaceutical Co and Xintian Pharmaceutical Co. Xintian Pharmaceutical is the only company in the province to make the list of the Top 50 Chinese Medicine R&D Powerhouses in 2024.

Wudang has built platforms to facilitate exchanges between academic institutions and enterprises, and encourages talents to work or provide services in the district through part-time appointments, collaborative research, and joint training initiatives. Thus, the district has attracted a range of skilled professionals.

Since 2023, 46 recruitment events have gathered over 580 job openings in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) enterprises and brought in 72 TCM professionals.  

Over the past four years, Wudang has helped companies secure 1.34 million yuan ($187,098.72) in municipal R&D subsidy funds. In 2023, it received 1 million yuan in industrial R&D support funds from the Guizhou Provincial Department of Science and Technology.  

In 2023, Xintian Pharmaceutical, an industrial leader in the district, invested over 56 million yuan in R&D, marking a year-on-year increase of 64 percent. In the first quarter of 2024, the company's R&D spending grew by 31.17 percent compared to the previous year.

Wudang is also accelerating the development of the Sinopharm Western Medical Industry Park and the Guizhou Big Health Pharmaceutical Innovation Cloud Incubation Base. It supports companies in establishing R&D and innovation platforms to continuously enhance product development and technological innovation.

The district currently hosts various R&D platforms. These include one provincial engineering research center, eight provincial enterprise technology centers, one provincial industry-academia-research demonstration base, two municipal enterprise technology centers, and three provincial technology innovation demonstration enterprises.