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To foster an ecosystem for HK-SZ collaboration in biotech, the employment opportunities and drive the growth of upstream and
two governments need to devise a long-term, concrete and downstream industries, as well as generating a good source of
comprehensive development plan. In this chapter, we shall focus tax revenues.
on some of the issues hampering HK-SZ collaboration and
propose policy recommendations for the reference of the two Nonetheless, there is a lack of world-class leading biotech
governments. To ensure long-term collaborative development corporation or industrial cluster in either Hong Kong or Shenzhen.
under “one zone, two parks” at the Loop, coordination on the Despite the rapid growth of industry in Shenzhen, there are
policy-making level should be stepped up to prevent talent and relatively fewer leading core enterprises and major multinationals.
enterprises from flowing one way and congregating into a SMEs make up the majority of biomedical companies in
particular park owing to differences in tax and rental incentives. Shenzhen, along with a few medium-sized companies that
constitute the backbone of the industry. Thus, there are few
companies with the potential to grow into leading enterprises.
| Establishing anchor institutions in One of the reasons behind so is the absence of anchor institutions,
the region to expedite development which exert significant influence on their surrounding areas.
of a biotech industrial cluster However, there is no lack of successful cases of anchor institutions
in other areas. Take Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park in Shanghai as an
Anchor institutions usually refer to core institutions or enterprises example. Right from the start of development, the municipal
in a specific area. There are two types of anchor institutions, one government and the operator of the Park took the initiative to
of which is top universities or mega research institutes. Through attract giant multinational pharmaceutical corporations, such as
fundamental scientific research and knowledge transfer, these Roche and GSK, to set up regional headquarters or R&D centres
institutions support local enterprises of various scales with basic in the park. The establishment fostered the formation of a local
research and help nurture spin-off enterprises of high potential biomedical supply chain, hence attracting and nurturing
into unicorns, thereby generating huge profits with research local innovative pharmaceutical companies like Green Valley,
outcomes. The other type of anchor institutions is large CITIC Guojian Pharmaceutical Industry Co., MicroPort and
enterprises, such as large pharmaceutical corporations, which Fudan-Zhangjiang. Another good example can be found in Greater
draw small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to relocate near Boston in the US, which houses an all-rounded and multifaceted
them so as to take part in the upstream or downstream world-class biotech industrial cluster. In the following section, we
operations or seek opportunities for acquisition by the giants. shall analyse the example of Kendall Square in Greater Boston
Anchor institutions play a crucial role in the development of the before proposing a multipronged strategy to build a biotech
local economy and industries as they create numerous industrial cluster in the Loop by establishing anchor institutions.

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