Chinese pharma-tech start-up eyes collaborations in Northern Ireland

China's pharmaceutical industry has seen a vertiginous rise, transforming from a low-cost manufacturing base into a global powerhouse for medical innovation. It's doubled in value over the past 10 years and is projected to do the same again over the next 10 to over $2 trillion.

One rising pharma-tech company is looking towards collaborations in the UK.

Sanyou Bio is "a hi-tech biopharmaceutical company with a mission of making innovative biologic R&D easier for clients worldwide," its senior biologics executive Zhong Peipei tells CGTN in Belfast.

At its brand new 10,000-square-meter, nine-story facility on the Huangpu River in Shanghai, it's fast becoming a global biopharmaceutical leader thanks to its AI-Powered Super-Trillion Molecule Library.

It's a massive collection of molecular-level antibodies, nanobodies, peptides and more – the stuff you need to trial new medicines and cell or gene therapies that could help cure rare diseases, tackle tumors, alleviate heart conditions, and even address anti-aging. 

Only founded in 2015, it already works with over 2,000 pharma and biotech firms globally – with Medicovestor in New York and FatiAbGen in Korea, for example.

Sanyou provides a platform for new drug discovery and has already made more than 1,200 new drug research and development projects possible, also filing for over 130 invention patents, more than 30 of which have been granted.

'Revolution in the medical sector'

Advances in technology are opening new possibilities and accelerating medical breakthroughs.

"I frequently say that we are the cusp of a revolution in the medical sector," Carlo Rinaldi, Professor of Molecular and Translational Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, tells CGTN.

"Development technology is absolutely essential for drug development. One good example is the case of baby KJ, which was the first baby to be treated with a CRISPR or genetic editing approach. This is a baby that otherwise would have had no chances of survival and now almost one year after the treatment is still doing well."

But this revolution has to be built on global collaboration, Rinaldi says.

"Therapy development and tackling disease should really have no boundaries. And this idea of collecting data sharing and information is something that should matter to all of us as a species, and it shouldn't be really country-specific or continent-specific. So for me, this is an opportunity to combine forces and find out each other's strengths, points of strength, and work together."

Sanyou Bio is expanding across Europe and America, looking at more partnerships and potentially a new R&D center in the UK.

At the first-ever China-Northern Ireland Economic, Trade and Investment Cooperation Forum, held in Belfast last November, Zhong Peipei told CGTN that Northern Ireland could be on the shortlist.

According to Zhong: "I think that Northern Ireland is a very friendly open market to the world. Also, you know, after Brexit, Northern Ireland has very special market positions, so it can get access to both GB and EU market tariff-free."

China is now the world's second largest pharmaceutical market and is responsible for around 30% of new drug development, and companies like Sanyou are already branching out and going global.