Shanghai Mayor Gong meets AstraZeneca CEO

Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng met with AstraZeneca's global executive director and CEO, Pascal Soriot, and his team on April 7.

Gong said that Shanghai is currently accelerating the construction of a socialist modern international metropolis with world influence in accordance with President Xi Jinping's strategic positioning for Shanghai's development.

Biomedicine is one of the three key leading industries being developed in Shanghai. After many years of development, Shanghai has become an important gathering place for global pharmaceutical leading enterprises and an innovative and entrepreneurial hotbed in the field of life and health.

Approximately 90 percent of the top 20 global pharmaceutical companies and top 20 global medical device companies have set up their regional headquarters or research and development centers in Shanghai. It is expected that Shanghai's biomedicine industry will exceed 1 trillion yuan (US$145.35 billion) by 2025.

AstraZeneca emphasizes innovation and it is welcomed to enter the Shanghai market, deepen long-term cooperation, and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results through the China International Import Expo platform. Shanghai will continue to create a first-class business environment to support all kinds of enterprises to become bigger and stronger in Shanghai, the mayor said.

Soriot said that AstraZeneca's development concept is highly consistent with China's development philosophy. AstraZeneca is deeply impressed by China's and Shanghai's development and will increase investment in China, and utilize Shanghai as its base to make China's wisdom benefit the world.

The investment of AstraZeneca's global R&D China Center has doubled in recent years, with a significant increase in the number of R&D personnel. At the same time, AstraZeneca will increase its cooperation with local biotech companies to promote a more perfect medical and pharmaceutical ecosystem in China and Shanghai.

AstraZeneca is one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies and has established its China headquarters and global R&D China Center in Shanghai.