Shanghai releases measures to boost biomedical industry

"We encourage venture capital funds to invest in emerging pharmaceutical and medical device companies, and welcome more social capital to participate in product development, result transformation and innovative system building in the city's biomedical industry," the document said.

The pharmaceutical and medical device companies also are encouraged to increase their own R&D investment, especially in new technologies, such as immune cell therapy, monoclonal antibody drugs and gene therapy, according to the document.

Another measure in the document is the establishment of a fast track of review and approval for drugs and medical devices that have obvious clinical advantages in the diagnosis or treatment of AIDS, malignant tumors, major infectious diseases, rare diseases, and diseases mainly occurring in the elderly and children.

The fast track also will be open to innovative treatment approaches, innovative medical devices that are developed for the first time in the country, those in national- or city-level research projects, and those that have clinical trails conducted at national-level centers for clinical medicine research.

A list of rare diseases in Shanghai will be drafted soon, according to the document, following the country's release of the first batch of the rare disease list, which included 121 such diseases, in May.

Registration of rare diseases in patients will be carried out more thoroughly and the government will support and encourage the development and production of therapies and medical devices for the treatment of rare diseases, the document said.

"Clinical trials can be reduced for medical devices that treat rare diseases, and for those that have been approved to be marketed in a foreign market, they will be able to be approved to be marketed in Shanghai with collateral conditions," according to the document.