Rebuilding the Spatial Layout! Guangzhou Aims for a 400 Billion Yuan Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Industry Cluster

Question AI · How does Guangzhou avoid industry internal competition through dislocated development?

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

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

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

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

01/

International Bio Island: A vivid microcosm from scattered to concentrated development

Talking about Guangzhou International Bio Island, which covers only 1.83 square kilometers, it is an unavoidable starting point.

Walking on this lush, island-like area in the river, within the quiet and spacious buildings, nearly 700 biopharmaceutical companies are gathered, including 7 Fortune 500 projects, with over 10 provincial-level or higher key laboratories. It vividly exemplifies Guangzhou’s biopharmaceutical industry from scattered to concentrated development.

Galen Award China Vice Chairman Lin Yao once lamented: “Few cities can dedicate such a large, clearly positioned area focused on biopharmaceuticals within the core urban area 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 the International Bio Island “origin.” Building on this innovation hub, Huangpu has first constructed a “R&D on Bio Island, pilot testing in Science City, manufacturing in Knowledge City” gradient industrial layout, efficiently channeling original innovation from the Jiangxin Green Island Laboratory into industrialization, thus achieving a leap from “origin” to a complete “chain.”

In 2024, Guangzhou’s government issued its first “Number One Document” at the city level, establishing a high-end industrial spatial layout centered on “Guangzhou International Bio Island” and radiating north and south with “Nansha Science City” and “Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City and Aviation Hub,” 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 and collaborative biopharmaceutical industry development in Guangzhou.

The biopharmaceutical industry map of Guangzhou further refines the “one core, two poles” layout into a pattern of “one core, two poles, multiple parks.”

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

Based on this industry map, Guangzhou further details the “one core, two poles” layout into a clear pattern of “one core, two poles, multiple parks”: with Bio Island as the core, Nansha Science City, Sino-Singapore Guangzhou Knowledge City, and the Aviation Hub as the north and south 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 International Bio Island, driven by two poles, with multiple parks collaborating and dislocated development, has taken shape.

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Nansha Value Park: Leading the future track

On the third day of research, the first stop was Nandu N Video reporters visiting Nansha Biological Valley in Hengli Town, Nansha. When touring the core facility “Nansha Life and Health Value Park” exhibition hall, it became clear that “Value Park” is not unique to this park but one of Guangzhou’s four key strategic nodes on the industry map.

Nansha Biological Valley (within the purple dashed line) includes the 2,236-acre Nansha Life and Health Value Park (within the yellow dashed line).

Last year, Guangzhou licensed and established four major biopharmaceutical value parks, clarifying their main focus areas to promote dislocated 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 focuses: Huangpu International Biopharmaceutical Value Park aims at R&D incubation and large-scale production to create a top-tier Asian biopharmaceutical base; Yuexiu Clinical Technology Achievement Transformation Park focuses on clinical translation and technological innovation; Liwan Modern Traditional Chinese Medicine and High-end Medical Devices Park emphasizes modernization of TCM and high-end device R&D.

As one of Guangzhou’s four licensed biopharmaceutical value parks, Nansha Life and Health Value Park is a key node. Covering about 2,236 acres, it aims to develop “cell and gene therapy” as a future technological breakthrough, focusing on building two industry brands: ophthalmology and anti-tumor. It also actively develops high-end segments like innovative drugs, new vaccines, and high-value medical consumables. The park has attracted well-known companies such as Watson Biotech, Kangnaixin, Enkang Pharmaceuticals, 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 Kaiyan Science and Technology Innovation Valley, which leverages the policy advantages of Nansha’s pilot zone status to focus on the development of one of Guangzhou’s six future core industries: cell and gene therapy (CGT). Walking into the park, many companies such as “genome editing” and “cell therapy” are visible. 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 the first clinical case of gene therapy for thalassemia in China; to date, 50 thalassemia patients have been cured and discharged here.

Nansha’s layout of the cell and gene therapy industry includes over 40 cutting-edge biotech companies like Lin Nan Gene, Tianke Ya, and Yijia Cells, forming an initial industry ecosystem from gene editing to cell therapy. With rising prominence of companies like Lin Nan Gene, the thalassemia gene therapy project in Nansha has attracted international attention, with visits and consultation requests from doctors and patients worldwide. The Nansha industrial park is accelerating its rise and is expected to become an increasingly important high ground in the global CGT innovation landscape.

03/

Liwan Characteristic Parks: Industrial “upstairs” and simulated medicine innovation

Traveling west from Nansha, the first stop is Dongze Zhihui Park in the Dongsha area of Liwan. Two tall buildings stand prominently, presenting a scene of urban industrial concentration and efficiency.

Dongze Zhihui Park, a characteristic park enabling the “upstairs” development of medical device industries.

As a key node for Liwan’s modern TCM and high-end medical device value parks, this park focuses on attracting healthcare big data, biotech, and extraction enterprises, creating an industrial hub. Currently, leading companies like Caizhilin and Diding Biotech have settled here.

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

About six kilometers from Dongze Zhihui Park, Zhujiang Simulation Medical Industry Park expands the industry ecosystem from another dimension. As one of Guangzhou’s key specialized parks, it forms a critical part of the industry layout alongside medical formulation, nuclear medicine, and in vitro diagnostics (IVD).

Inside Zhujiang Simulation Medical Industry Park, high-fidelity organ models are displayed.

Touching these highly realistic organ models, one perceives not just educational tools but the future form of medical education. As a leading unit in national simulation medical education R&D and transformation, the park gathers global resources through “one center and six platforms,” including high-fidelity simulators, VR/AR training, AI assessment, and 3D bioprinting biomimetic materials, creating an immersive medical education and innovation platform.

An immersive medical education platform built by resident companies.

“We just successfully introduced Germany’s ApoQLar, a top global VR surgical navigation company,” said Tian Jing, director of the Clinical Skills Center at Zhujiang Hospital of Southern Medical University and head of the park, excitedly. He explained that although ApoQLar’s immersive surgical navigation technology is world-leading, it is still far from large-scale promotion in real surgical environments. “Our park’s advanced 3D bioprinting biomimetic materials and simulated lesion blood supply animal organs 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 Medical University, and National University of Singapore. Its presence will bring broader international research resources and collaboration opportunities.

Currently, the park has attracted nine leading domestic simulation medical companies such as Yingkou Jucheng and Beidesida, and, leveraging Zhujiang Hospital’s clinical resources, actively promotes the formulation of doctor skill certification standards, aiming to become an important node for medical innovation nationwide.

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

As the four major value parks and numerous characteristic parks continue to exert influence, Guangzhou is accelerating the formation of a well-elemented, layered, and collaborative biopharmaceutical innovation ecosystem. It is not only a geographical restructuring of industry but also a systematic response of the city to future health industry development.