The ChinaBio® Partnering Forum 2014, China’s largest life science partnering event, will take place in one month, May 7–8, at the Kempinski Hotel in Suzhou.

For life science insiders, the CBPF is the most productive partnering event for established biotech and early stage companies to meet and collaborate with China-based corporate partners, venture capitalists and business development executives from big pharma companies.

In 2013, the Forum was attended by more than 750 delegates from 405 companies and 22 countries. A full 60% of the delegates came from China, another 15% from Asia-Pacific, and the remainder from North America and Europe.

Pharma companies strongly support the event, as many international companies seek to access the massive healthcare market and partnership opportunities for growth in China. AstraZeneca, Bayer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Lundbeck, Novo Nordisk and Roche are global pharmaceutical companies who are sponsoring this year’s event. A few notable Chinese companies attending are Jiangsu Hengrui Medicine Co., Ltd., Luye Pharma Group, Ltd., Simcere Pharmaceutical Group, and Tasley Pharmaceutical Group.

According to Li Wang, Director, Scientific Partnering and Alliances at AstraZeneca, China is a very interesting, dynamic environment, with a tremendous growth proposition. “Today we have more than 5,000 employees in China, we have an AstraZeneca R&D center in China... If you ask me today, is there innovation from China, definitely I would say yes and there will come even more,” said Wang.

Wang stated further, “The market share for AstraZeneca is nearly #2. The China market is critical for AstraZeneca. And also, we really want our presence in China to be beneficial to Chinese patients. There is a huge market there, and there is no reason for not going to China. There is no reason [to] only have a presence in marketing sales in China. You need to also have an R&D presence in China. You need access to patient samples to understand the patient need. This is our reason to be in China.”

“We have the pleasure of being one of the few pharmaceutical companies in Beijing. And I think that’s a little bit of a luxury having two of the best rated universities in China in Beijing: Peking University and Tsinghua University. So, still, we of course enjoy recruiting talent from those two universities. That’s a very, very important aspect of being in Beijing,” said Tomas Landh, Director, Strategy and Innovation Sourcing, Diabetes Research Unit at Novo Nordisk, one of the longest standing big pharma companies in China.

International biotech and life science service providers jostle for presenting company slots that can open the door to lucrative pharma and provider relationships. Innovative companies, organizations and researchers interested in partnering their technologies or products, initiating strategic alliances, or tapping into the financing network are filling the presenting company track this year.

“Participating in the ChinaBio Partnering Forum provides an opportunity to introduce CarysBio to other members of the life science community. Our goal is to acquaint potential clients with CarysBio's unique capabilities in the area of drug/xenobiotic transporter actions. These cell membrane proteins play a critical role in bioavailability, drug/drug interaction, and toxicity. The combination of transporter effects and standard ADME results provides critical parameters on understanding drug action and disposition,” said Kezhi Zhang, Co-Founder and COO of CarysBio, a Contract Research Organization focused on providing support for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. “Presenting, and engaging in one-to-one partnering meetings, has been critical to the success of CarysBio.”

Innovative companies interested in presentation can access the online application for a limited amount of remaining spots.

Online registration is accessible online until April 30, 2014, 17:00 PDT, after which all registrations will be handled on site.