Biotech is where the future of humanity is (almost literally) being made, and Hong Kong’s handful of researchers and entrepreneurs are starting to get global attention for their work. As the government prepares to double R&D expenditure, could a homegrown biotech business be on Hong Kong’s horizon?
Bankers, lawyers and doctors – these are the holy trinity of professions approved by Hong Kong’s Tiger Moms for their children. But they have something else in common. All are undergoing dramatic changes because of the expanding role of technology.
The city’s bankers might be wondering where their careers stand as fintech takes a firmer hold in their profession, and lawyers must be asking themselves what legal-tech will do to their chosen path.
For Hong Kong’s pool of students and researchers in the life sciences and medicine, however, the growth of a local biotechnology industry is very good news. Our cover personalities in this issue are all doctors with an interest in biotechnology, and all agree that the past five years has seen an uptick in interest among investors and businesspeople in the prospects for Hong Kong’s biotech sector.
The biotechnology business covers a wide spectrum of activity – from pharmaceuticals, radical stem cell therapies and diagnostic tools, to use of genomic data and medical devices. In Europe and the US, the key markets for biotechnology, overall revenues for listed companies rose from US$130 billion (HK $1.14 trillion) to $140 billion between 2015 and 2016, a growth of 7 percent, according to a 2017 report by consultancy EY. The report characterised this as disappointing, considering the double-digit growth of previous years. Employment among biotech companies climbed from 178,690 to 203,210, while expenditure on research and development rose 12 percent.
In the US, key cluster areas for biotechnology and innovation such as the San Francisco Bay Area, New England and San Diego, all far exceed China in terms of money raised, according to EY. That said, China is leading the charge for Asia in terms of developing home-grown biotechnologies that are the source of investment opportunities.
This story is from the November 2017 edition of The PEAK Hong Kong.
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This story is from the November 2017 edition of The PEAK Hong Kong.
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