Media Coverage: Economic Daily on Intellective Bio's Scaled and Localized Production-Newsroom

On 9 May, the Economic Daily published "The 'New' Journey of the Strongest Prefecture-level City," featuring an interview with Intellective Bio as a representative of new quality productive forces in the biopharmaceutical industry. Excerpts follow:

"Only by fully committing to localisation and scale can we bring down drug prices," said Liang Kexue, Deputy General Manager of Intellective Bio (Suzhou) Co., Ltd., who also highlighted the issue of mass production during our visit. China's biopharma industry started relatively late, with most production equipment and raw materials initially reliant on imports. Intellective Bio was one of the first companies to advocate for localised and scaled production. "Biopharmaceuticals are a strategic emerging industry crucial to national welfare and security. Although recognition of domestic equipment was really low initially, we firmly believed that for China to develop this industry, it must have its own equipment and consumables. Therefore, we collaborated with dozens of suppliers to jointly develop domestic equipment. We have now achieved full-process localisation in drug substance and drug product manufacturing lines, significantly reducing costs and enhancing our core competitiveness." According to Liang Kexue, the company now plays a significant role in CMC development and commercial manufacturing for large molecule drugs. As Intellective Bio grows, its supply chain partners have also grown alongside it. To further expand capacity, Intellective Bio launched a new site in Changshu in 2021. Once fully operational, it can produce 128 million doses of biological products annually. "This is the single-site facility with the largest production capacity in China. Only scale can reduce costs." In Liang Kexue's view, the annual public discussion about national volume-based procurement and 'soul-level price negotiations' reflects people's concern about drug prices. However, from a long-term perspective, the industry needs to find a balance. If prices are pushed too low, rendering the market unprofitable, it may ultimately deter participation. "In this process, we still rely on enterprises' own innovation-driven to reduce costs, improve profit margins, and work with more partners to promote the healthy development of the industry."