Cedrus Life Sciences Investment Forum Photo: Courtesy of Cedrus Group

The Swiss global financial group Cedrus Group announced the establishment of the QFLP Fund on Tuesday to focus on investing in mature, pre-IPO stage companies in the life sciences and agriculture sectors in China, and establishing joint ventures with foreign companies seeking to enter the Chinese market. 

Chairman of Cedrus Group, Rani Jarkas, said that the launch of the fund is a major milestone for the group, and proves that an international financial group like Cedrus is highly committed to China.

The fund will complete the group's ecosystem in life sciences and will enable the company to play an even more active role in the development of highly innovative biotech and pharmaceutic companies in China, by adding a focused capital pool supporting these initiatives, Jarkas noted. 

In addition, it will boost their capabilities to attract highly relevant foreign technology into China, through joint ventures or wholly owned foreign entities, which in turn, will create highly skilled jobs in healthcare and increase local government tax revenues, he said.

The move was announced at the Cedrus Life Sciences Investment Forum in Beijing on Tuesday. Fifty industrial experts were invited to the forum to discuss and offer advice to promote the development of the life science industry. Wei Jianguo, former vice minister of China's Ministry of Commerce, attended the forum and delivered a keynote speech. 

Xia Qinglin, secretary of the work committee of the Party Committee of the Tianjin Binhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Area and general director of the administrative commission of the area, introduced the area's favorable policies for bio-investment companies, the current scale and layout of biotechnology companies, and the agglomeration effect the area had created through cooperation with Cedrus. 

Relying on the Haihe Laboratory of Cell Ecosystem, the Tianjin Binhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Area enhanced efforts to improve the level of the local biomedical industry. 

The area issued "double nine policies" to further support the accelerated development of the biomedical industry, to help build the area into a world-class and domestically leading source of basic research and a gathering place for scientific and technological innovation. 

Currently, there are more than 204 city-level and above research and development institutions in the Tianjin Binhai Hi-Tech Industrial Development Area. Among them, more than 30 are at the national level. These institutions have helped to attract talent and created a cluster effect for the area, Wang told the Global Times. 

"For a development region like ours, both our industry and technology must be internationalized. We must constantly connect with international resources to promote our companies to go global while also introducing international companies into our area. After all, technology can only develop through exchanges and mutual learning. This is not only to promote the development of enterprises but also to promote the development of various countries to better serve people's lives and health," Xia said. 

Xiong Juan, chairwoman of the Hainan Leyun Biotechnology Co, Ltd, also shared her opinions on the challenges and opportunities facing Chinese companies on the path of internationalization. 

"We are mainly in the scientific research transformation period in China. As a Chinese life sciences company, we not only want to promote our products in this market in China but also want to go out to Southeast Asia and also to Europe. But as our overseas resources and visibility overseas are limited, so we need an international platform like Cedrus to help combine external resources," Xiong said. 

Global Times