Guangzhou Restructures Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Landscape: "One Core, Two Poles" Layout Adds Four Major Parks for Synergistic Development

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Nansha Life and Health Valley Park is one of Guangzhou’s four designated biopharmaceutical value parks.

A highly realistic organ model displayed in the Pearl River Simulation Medical Industry Park.

An immersive medical education platform built by companies within the park.

When a trillion-dollar industry boom arrives, how can a super-large city plan to avoid “multiple points of bloom and homogeneous competition”?

Guangzhou’s answer is: targeted placement and systematic reshaping.

From March 10 to 12, under the organization of Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Industry and Information Technology (Biopharmaceutical Industry Office), Nandu reporters visited nearly 20 key sites along Guangzhou’s entire biopharmaceutical industry chain to gain an in-depth “perspective” on this city’s strategic pillar industry. This is the third article in the series.

By early 2025, with the official designation of Huangpu, Nansha, Yuexiu, and Liwan as major biopharmaceutical value parks, a new industrial landscape of “dislocation development and complementary cooperation” is gradually unfolding in Guangzhou. How will this grand plan, aiming to support a 400-billion-yuan industry cluster over several years, progress? Nandu reporters, along with Guangzhou’s industry and information departments, went deep into frontline construction sites, exploring multiple characteristic parks to decode how each leverages its unique assets and positioning to jointly build a solid foundation for Guangzhou’s industrial ambitions.

International Bio Island

A vivid microcosm from scattered to concentrated

At just 1.83 square kilometers, Guangzhou International Bio Island is an unavoidable starting point.

Walking through this lush, river-centered island, within the tranquil and spacious buildings, nearly 700 biopharmaceutical companies are gathered, including seven Fortune 500 projects, and over ten provincial-level or higher key laboratories. It vividly exemplifies Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry’s shift from fragmentation to clustering.

Galen Award China Vice Chairman Lin Yao once remarked: “Few cities can dedicate such a large, clearly defined area in the core city to focus on biopharmaceutical development like Guangzhou.”

As the core carrier of Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry, Huangpu District’s development path is a continuation and expansion of the energy from this “origin” point. Building on the innovation hub of Bio Island, Huangpu has pioneered a “R&D on Bio Island, pilot testing in Science City, manufacturing in Knowledge City” gradient industrial layout, efficiently channeling original innovations from the Jiangxin Green Island Laboratory into industrialization, thus achieving a leap from “origin” to a complete “chain.”

In early 2024, Guangzhou’s government issued its first “Number One Document,” explicitly establishing a high-end industrial spatial layout centered on “Guangzhou International Bio Island,” with “Nansha Science City” and “Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City and Aviation Hub” as the northern and southern poles, forming a “one core, two poles” structure, and creating a pilot zone for “one island, multiple parks.” This marked a shift from dispersed to systematic collaboration in Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical landscape.

In March 2025, at the inaugural Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Future Health Industry Conference, Guangzhou released the country’s first biopharmaceutical industry map, systematically outlining its industry assets: 305 public service platforms, 61 industry parks, 11 industrial land plots, with a total land area of 536.14 hectares, and a total construction area of 14.6181 million square meters, with 3.5972 million square meters currently available.

Based on this industry map, Guangzhou further refined its “one core, two poles” layout into a clear “one core, two poles, multiple parks” pattern: Bio Island as the core, with Nansha Science City and Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City & Aviation Hub as the northern and southern poles, focusing on four key biopharmaceutical development zones—Huangpu, Nansha, Yuexiu, and Liwan—and guiding other areas toward differentiated development.

Thus, a biopharmaceutical ecosystem centered on Bio Island, driven by two poles, with multiple parks collaborating and developing in dislocation, has taken shape.

Nansha Value Park

A pioneering zone for future industries

On the third day of research, the first stop was Nandu reporters visiting Nansha Biological Valley in Hengli Town, Nansha. During a tour of its core facility, the “Nansha Life and Health Value Park,” it became clear that “Value Park” is not unique to this site but one of four key strategic points in Guangzhou’s industrial map.

Last year, Guangzhou designated four major biopharmaceutical value parks, each with its own focus, aiming to promote dislocation development and functional complementarity. Nansha Park is one of them, emphasizing “innovative drug and medical device R&D + life health manufacturing.” The other three parks have their own priorities: Huangpu International Biopharmaceutical Value Park focuses on R&D incubation and large-scale production to create a top-tier Asian biopharmaceutical base; Yuexiu Clinical Technology Achievement Transformation Park concentrates on clinical translation and technological innovation; Liwan Modern Chinese Medicine and High-end Medical Equipment Park aims to modernize traditional Chinese medicine and develop high-end medical devices.

As the core of Nansha Biological Valley, the approximately 2,236-acre Nansha Life and Health Value Park / Biopharmaceutical and Health Benchmark Park explicitly targets “cell and gene therapy” as a future technological breakthrough, aiming to develop “ophthalmology + anti-tumor” as two flagship industries, and focusing on high-end segments such as innovative drugs, new vaccines, and high-value medical consumables. The park has attracted well-known biopharmaceutical companies like Watson Biotech, Konyin, Enkang Pharma, and Advanced Regenerative Medicine. To strengthen industry support, a public service center for the Greater Bay Area’s cell and gene therapy industry, with a total investment of about 68.15 million yuan, has recently been launched, providing high-precision testing and intelligent sample storage services.

Another characteristic platform in Nansha is Kai建·Sci-Tech Valley, which leverages the policy advantages granted to Nansha for pioneering reforms. It is focusing on the development of one of Guangzhou’s six future core industries: cell and gene therapy (CGT). Walking into the park, many signs for companies involved in “genome editing” and “cell therapy” can be seen, indicating industry momentum. Lin Nan Gene Technology (Guangdong) Co., Ltd., one of the resident companies, specializes in FIC/BIC gene therapy drug R&D. Last June, it successfully completed China’s first gene therapy clinical case for thalassemia; to date, 50 thalassemia patients have been cured and discharged here.

Currently, over 40 cutting-edge biotech companies, including Lin Nan Gene, Tianke Ya, and Yijia Cells, have gathered in Nansha, forming an initial industry ecosystem from gene editing to cell therapy. As companies like Lin Nan Gene emerge, the Nansha thalassemia gene therapy project has attracted international attention, with inquiries and visits from doctors and patients from multiple countries. The Nansha industrial park is accelerating its rise and is poised to become an increasingly important high ground in the global CGT innovation landscape.

Liwan Characteristic Park

Industrial upscaling and innovative simulation medicine

Traveling west from Nansha, the Dongze Zhihui Park in Dongsha, Liwan District, features two towering buildings, exemplifying urban industrial concentration and efficiency.

As the pivot of Liwan’s Modern Chinese Medicine and High-end Medical Equipment Value Park, this park focuses on attracting healthcare and biotech industries, including biotech tech and extraction companies, creating an industrial hub. Leading enterprises like Caizhilin and Diding Biotech have already settled in.

As the district’s first “Industrial 4.0” project utilizing village-level retained land and the first “industrial upscaling” platform, the park’s 5-8 meter ceiling heights, 2-6 story buildings with 1 ton/m² load (first floor 2 tons/m²), along with supporting infrastructure like medium-pressure gas and large-scale sewage treatment, enable heavy industries like medical devices to “grow upward,” effectively solving the space resource bottleneck in the city center.

About six kilometers from Dongze Zhihui Park, Pearl River Simulation Medical Industry Park expands the industry ecosystem in another dimension. As one of Guangzhou’s key specialized parks, it integrates with fields like medical formulations, nuclear medicine, and in vitro diagnostics (IVD), forming a critical part of the industry layout with specialization and differentiation.

Here, high-fidelity organ models are not just teaching tools but represent the future of medical education. As a leading entity in simulation medical education R&D and transformation nationwide, the park’s “one center, six platforms” gather global advanced resources—from high-fidelity simulators and VR/AR training to AI assessment and 3D-printed bionic materials—building an immersive medical education and innovation platform.

“We’ve just successfully introduced ApoQLar, a top global VR glasses company from Germany,” said Tian Jing, director of the Clinical Skills Center at Southern Medical University’s Pearl River Hospital and park leader, describing the latest developments. He explained that ApoQLar’s immersive surgical navigation technology is world-leading but still not widely used in real surgeries. “Our park’s advanced 3D-printed bionic materials and simulated diseased organs with blood supply provide excellent testing, optimization, and demonstration scenarios for their technology.” Tian Jing further noted that ApoQLar has established deep collaborations with top international medical education institutions like Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic, Hamburg University Medical Center, and National University of Singapore Medical School. Its presence will bring broader international research resources and collaboration opportunities.

Currently, nine leading domestic simulation medical companies, including Yingkou Jucheng and Beidesida, have settled here. Leveraging clinical resources from Pearl River Hospital, the park actively promotes the formulation of doctor skill certification standards, aiming to become an important node for medical innovation nationwide.

From Nansha’s “future industry” layout to Liwan’s exploration of “industrial upscaling” and “simulation medicine,” this “one zone, one policy” and “one park, one feature” differentiated approach effectively avoids homogenization competition, gradually forming a complete industrial chain from R&D, pilot testing, manufacturing, to clinical translation.

As the four major value parks and numerous characteristic parks continue to develop, Guangzhou is rapidly shaping a well-integrated, layered, and collaborative biopharmaceutical innovation ecosystem. It is not only a geographical restructuring of industry but also a systematic response to the city’s future health industry.

Nandu Research, Issue 900

Planning: Wang Weiguo, Li Yang

Coordination: Yin Lai, Wang Daobin, You Manni

Reporting: Nandu Reporter Huang Haishan

Photos provided by interviewees