HANGZHOU, China, Nov. 28, 2025 /Xinhua-AsiaNet/--
As artificial intelligence (AI) has entered a fast track of application and implementation, east China's Zhejiang Province has embraced the "AI Plus" initiative with a key focus on biomedical engineering, with its renowned smart manufacturing district of Qiantang rising to become a leading force in the field.
Hangzhou Biopharma Town in Qiantang District, the core cluster of Zhejiang's biomedical and medical device industry, is home to over 1,800 biomedical enterprises. Following the launch of its first innovative drug last year, the town now has 90 innovative drugs in clinical trials, with Class 1 innovative drugs expected to be produced in Qiantang every year.
Developing an innovative drug typically takes 10 years and costs 1 billion U.S. dollars, yet the success rate for market approval is less than 10%. AI technology has become the crucial key to breaking this bottleneck.
Stepping into MindRank, an innovative drug developer in Qiantang District, one will not find the bottles and jars of drugs and formulations seen in traditional laboratories. Instead, high-speed computing equipment and flowing data on screens take center stage, as engineers use AI to develop drugs on computers.
"With AI technology, we can quickly and accurately screen for better molecules. We completed the confirmation of preclinical candidate compounds in just 8 months, saving 1.5 to 3 years and over 50% of early R&D costs compared to traditional methods," said Niu Zhangming, founder and CEO of MindRank. AI is not only faster but also more knowledgeable in drug development.
"Currently, AI technology is breaking through the limits of human knowledge and experience, enabling the discovery of more original molecules. This in turn brings new ideas for tackling intractable diseases that previously had no effective treatments," said Cao Ji, vice president of the Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine, Zhejiang University.
In Qiantang District, the Pfizer smart healthcare innovation center is empowering medical services with advanced technologies, striving to transform clinical pain points and scientific research prototypes into actionable products and solutions.
"For example, addressing the diagnosis and treatment needs of migraine in China, we aim to leverage AI to empower scientific research and clinical practice throughout the entire medical-education-research process, supporting experts nationwide in accurate diagnosis, standardized treatment, and efficient patient management," said Wang Fei, general manager of the innovation center.
From the experience-driven and trial-and-error approach to data-driven and intelligently designed solution, as AI intelligently penetrates the entire drug R&D process, Qiantang has initially formed a closed-loop biomedical industry chain covering AI-empowered targeted discovery, automated experiments and digital clinical trials, ushering in a new generation of pharmaceutical paradigms.
"The reason we settled in Qiantang is its strong industrial foundation," said Niu Zhangming, echoing the consensus of many enterprises. As early as the 2000s, Qiantang attracted pharmaceutical companies such as Jiuyuan Genetic Engineering and Zhongtai Biochemical, sowing the seeds for the regional biomedical industry.
After more than 20 years of intensive development, with Hangzhou Biopharma Town as the main hub, Qiantang has gathered over 1,800 biomedical enterprises, including 7 out of the world's top 10 pharmaceutical companies. It has attracted more than 500 high-end talents and 16 academician teams, with an industrial scale accounting for approximately 50% of Hangzhou's total biomedical output value.
"As a major manufacturing district, Qiantang District's booming AI industry provides a solid technological foundation for 'AI plus biomedicine,'" said Cao Chongfeng, director of Qiantang District's Development and Reform Bureau.
Currently, Qiantang has launched 15 large model projects, established over 18 AI research platforms at or above the provincial level, and gathered more than 110 AI enterprises. Computing power, algorithms, and data are continuously flowing into every link of new drug R&D.
Additionally, relying on the disciplinary and talent advantages of universities, Qiantang District has emerged with high-level scientific and technological innovation platforms such as Zhejiang University's Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine and the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Meanwhile, the district has established an AI-empowered intelligent drug-making innovation consortium, including the biomedical artificial intelligence joint laboratory of China Pharmaceutical University and the biomedical artificial intelligence center established by the Hangzhou Institute of Medicine, Chinese Academy of Sciences. These platforms provide enterprises with full-cycle AI innovation services from design and target selection to experimentation.
"In daily practice, Zhejiang University's Innovation Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Medicine integrates an independent and controllable original target discovery and verification technology system into enterprise R&D processes, and offers various forms of concept validation services, enabling laboratory results to reach patients faster," said a senior official with the institute. To date, the institute has incubated 7 pharmaceutical enterprises and undertaken over 140 projects.
Cultivating a fertile industrial ecosystem and resource elements, Qiantang District is redefining the future of biomedicine along the development logic of leveraging AI to empower other fields. Standing on the eve of a concentrated outbreak of biomedical technologies, Qiantang District will strive to improve industrial policies and ecological systems, turn the Hangzhou Biopharma Town into a national industrial landmark, and achieve the "singularity moment" of the biomedical industry.
Source: Qiantang District's Development and Reform Bureau