The View | How Hong Kong can build on its strengths to become a global biotech data hub
- The city is a major financing centre for biotech; it must now cement its reputation as a research hub
- It already has two key advantages: world-class universities and a wealth of clinical and medical data
Following the Hong Kong stock exchange’s annual biotech summit on September 1, it is a good time to review the city’s biotech development.
The good news is that Hong Kong remains the world’s second-largest fundraising hub for biotechnology. Based on Our Hong Kong Foundation data, Hong Kong has 51 listings for pre-revenue biotech companies, with 11 new joiners since last October. Concurrently, 46 mature biotech companies have gone public, with nine additions in the past year.
Yet, our records suggest that no more than two of the listed pre-revenue biotech companies and only one of the mature ones have research bases in Hong Kong. Unsurprisingly, most are set up in Shanghai, Beijing, Suzhou or Hangzhou.
This mismatch in the development of the city’s capital market and its innovation and technology (I&T) sector needs addressing if Hong Kong is to transition from finance centre to biotech innovation hub.
