Forward-thinking industry executives converged upon Beijing last week for the ChinaBio® Partnering Forum, China’s premier life science partnering event. Senior executives representing leading drug development and medtech companies from around the world attended the event, in search of opportunities to partner in China.

The fifth annual event, held at the Shangri-La Hotel Beijing, was attended by over 750 life science delegates from 405 companies and 22 countries, who engaged in more than 1,070 one-to-one meetings facilitated by partneringONE®. Sixty-five percent of attending companies were from China.

ChinaBio® Partnering Forum is co-organized by ChinaBio® LLC, a leading consulting firm in Shanghai, and EBD Group, the premier partnering conference firm for the life science industry. 

“As China’s role in the global pharma market continues to increase each year, ChinaBio® Partnering Forum also grows in importance,” said Greg B. Scott, President and Founder of ChinaBio® LLC. “This year, we saw more attendees from both global pharma and China’s leading pharma and biotechs than ever before. Attendees tell us that the Partnering Forum is the best organized and most productive partnering conference in China, and when they are happy, we are happy.”

“The biopharma market in China is a growth market that has more than doubled over the last five years in terms of cross-border collaborations,” said Carola Schropp, President of EBD Group. “Western drug giants and investors are eager to capitalize on the vast potential for in-licensing and distribution partnership deals available at ChinaBio® Partnering Forum. It is a dynamic environment and a high-quality research and manufacturing destination, and this is the impetus for the event.”

Multinational companies including Abbott, AstraZeneca, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, Janssen, Life Technologies, Lonza, Lundbeck, Merck, Novo Nordisk, Qiagen and Sanofi, as well as many others were well represented at the Partnering Forum. China pharma were also strongly represented by 3SBio, BeiGene, BGI, Furen, Fosun, Grand Pharma, Hengrui, Humanwell, Minhaj, Luqa, RuiYi, Reyoung, Sine, SinoPharm, SL Pharma, Tasly and many others.

The main program was focused on global partnering in China, with speakers representing the broad range of industry executives, from leading Chinese companies and service providers to global pharma.  This year’s keynote, “Partnering landscape in China: Joining the global game,” was a highlight of the event, and featured executive panelists Eckhard Ottow, MD, PhD from Bayer Pharma AG; Yongkui Sun, PhD from MSD R&D (China) Co., Ltd.; Jinzi J. Wu, PhD from Ascletis, Inc.; and Steve Yang, PhD from AstraZeneca.

Other panels of high interest were “Biologics and Biosimilars in China: The race is on,” “Clinical strategies in China: Smoothing a rough road” and “VC investment: The global connection.”

Video coverage of ChinaBio® Partnering Forum 2013 is available at www.partnering360.com/insight.

The next edition of ChinaBio® Partnering Forum will be held in Suzhou, China, May 7–8, 2014. The annual event attracts biotech and pharma leaders from around the world and engages delegates with one-to-one meetings, workshops and panels, exhibits, networking receptions and a gala banquet evening event.  For more information, please go to www.ebdgroup.com/cbpf.