Global pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca makes a heavyweight move, turning Guangzhou into a "hotspot for investment" in the biopharmaceutical industry

Recently, global biopharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca and the Management Committee of the Guangzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone signed a cooperation agreement, announcing that they will build a radioactive conjugate drug (RDC) production and supply base in Huangpu, Guangzhou. This is also a key move by AstraZeneca to complete its strategic layout in the nuclear medicine segment, a cutting-edge track.

According to the introduction, the AstraZeneca radioactive conjugate drug (RDC) production and supply base project focuses on the production of radioactive conjugate drugs based on actinium-225, mainly for precise treatment of malignant tumors such as prostate cancer. The project will not only meet the needs of patients in China, but will also radiate to the Asia-Pacific market, becoming an important node in AstraZeneca’s global supply chain.

From an industrial perspective, this cooperation also marks that Guangzhou has secured a commanding position in the nuclear medicine track in the global biopharmaceutical industry map. As a national biopharmaceutical innovation hub, Huangpu District in Guangzhou is accelerating the formation of a complete ecosystem across “research—clinical—production—application” by attracting world top 500 companies such as AstraZeneca, injecting strong momentum into the cultivation of new quality productive forces.

Reporters learned from Huangpu District, Guangzhou, that the area has built a three-in-one support system of “policy—services—industry.” With a business environment characterized by “policies with force, services with warmth, and industry with depth,” it has created a “investment hotbed” that attracts global biopharmaceutical companies.

Among them, the New Drug Application Submission Service Center of Huangpu District, Guangzhou, established in 2021, is the first district-level biopharmaceutical professional technical service platform in the country. The center has innovatively introduced a “country—province—city—district” four-level coordinated service model, providing enterprises with end-to-end technical guidance from preclinical research to marketing application submission. To date, it has provided technical services to biopharmaceutical companies 1,880 times, helping 12 innovative drugs to be approved, accounting for half of the province’s total.

In terms of industrial layout, Huangpu District, Guangzhou, has formed a biopharmaceutical spatial pattern of “two cities and one island.” The specialized nuclear medical industrial park planned and built by the Sino-French Guangzhou Knowledge City has attracted core enterprises such as Atom High-Tech, Huanzi Medicines, and the Group’s rare-nuclide global medical isotope R&D center of Guangzhou Pharmaceutical Group, forming a complete industrial chain from isotope production to drug R&D. The district has more than 4,800 biopharmaceutical enterprises, including 463 high-tech enterprises, 328 specialized and innovative enterprises, and 21 listed companies, accounting for 72% of the city’s total.

On the infrastructure front, Huangpu District, Guangzhou, has a world-class biopharmaceutical manufacturing base. The Greater Bay Area Biosecurity Innovation Port is equipped with publicly available technical platforms such as internationally leading GMP workshops, mass spectrometry analysis platforms, and cell culture platforms, which can meet the full-cycle needs from early R&D to large-scale production. At the same time, the district has established specialized parks such as the International Bio-Island and Guangzhou Science City, forming a coordinated development pattern of “R&D on the island and production in the city.”

Looking at Guangzhou as a whole, currently the city has cultivated more than 6,500 biopharmaceutical enterprises, including 12 Fortune 500 companies and 26 listed companies. Its industry scale, innovation platforms, and number of enterprises all rank in the country’s top first tier. The list “Global High-Quality Research Leading Cities 2024” released on the website of the journal Nature shows that Guangzhou ranks among the world’s top ten in fields such as life sciences.

In terms of the policy framework, Guangzhou has formed a “1+N” structure. “1” refers to the “Several Policies and Measures to Promote High-Quality Development of the Biopharmaceutical Industry in Guangzhou,” issued in 2024 as City Government Document No. 1, providing real financial backing for the landing of global top-tier technologies; “N” refers to a series of supporting policies such as the innovative drug and medical device catalog, measures for the high-quality development of formulations of medical institutions, several measures to support innovative medicine development under medical insurance, and 12 measures to further promote the application of innovative drugs and medical devices, covering the entire chain of outcome transformation, administrative approvals, and market expansion.

In 2025, the Galleon Foundation and Guangzhou signed a memorandum of understanding for cooperation. The “Galleon Prize,” created by the Galleon Foundation, is hailed as the “Nobel Prize in the pharmaceutical sector.” Lin Yao, Vice Chairman of the Galleon Prize China region, commented: “Very few cities can develop biopharmaceuticals in such a scale and with such a clear positioning as Guangzhou does in its core urban areas. We have seen Guangzhou’s determination to develop the biopharmaceutical industry. Guangzhou not only has a clear layout and ongoing investment, but also a deep understanding of the needs for scientific researchers.”

A massive amount of information and precise interpretation—available on the Sina Finance APP