Trade Mission Program Cover.
Professor Moira Gunn sent a great report from Shanghai about the exciting activities and the significant presence of USF School of Business and Professional Studies at the Bay Area Council Healthcare and Life Sciences Trade Mission to China which took place recently in Shanghai.
Professor Gunn is also the creator and host of NPR’s TECH NATION and BIOTECH NATION radio programs. With the collaboration of Professor Xiaohua Yang, a native Mandarin-speaker, they were able — while on location at the trade mission — to create the first productions of a new podcast series, in Mandarin, entitled BIOTECH NATION CHINA. Professor Gunn writes below about the exciting exclusives they scored in their first interviews.
The USF School of Business and Professional Studies is the only Bay Area School represented on the elite panel of Trade Mission Delegates. Professor Gunn, Managing Director of our Biotechnology Programs, and Professor Yang, head of our Globalization of Chinese Business program, are leading business scholars in their respective fields, both of which are central to the goals of the Council and of this trade mission .
The mission was co-sponsored by BayHelix Group, a premier organization of Chinese heritage membership in the global life sciences and healthcare community around the Pacific Rim, originally founded here in the Bay Area, and now also active in mainland China directing Chinese investment back into the U.S.
The event is part of the Bay Area Council’s efforts to capitalize on the business-to-business and business-to-government ties that exist between the Bay Area and the Shanghai and Yangtze River Delta Knowledge and Information Community (KIC).
Here’s are Professor Gunn’s comments from the front lines:
“I'm telling you Xiaohua is the Biotech-Oprah-Winfrey of China! Took to it like a fish to water! “
We scored our first two interviews - and we've started at the top!
#1 - Dr. Ge Li - Founder, Chair and CEO of WuXi AppTec, the largest Contract Research Organization in China (CRO) - $330 M revenue with a big arrow pointed up - he had just been awarded the BayHelix lifetime achievement award. Covered in the interview (I am assured by Xiaohua – my Mandarin is non-existent!) is their increasing approach to biotech, where in the world they're getting their business, their new biologics manufacturing plant, the IP arrangements, their acquisition of an American firm, and their strategy for further acquisitions.
#2 - Dr. Tony Zhang, head of External Global R&D Asia for Eli Lilly - He talked about Lilly acquisitions/collaborations in China and their strategy, plus all about BayHelix - originally San Francisco-based investment capital folks, and many have moved back to China - and now some are investing in firms in the Bay Area - it starting to go both ways, as we have always suspected.
Both gentlemen will be recorded on the normal BioTech Nation when they come to the international BIO conference and/or San Francisco.
A third person we have lined up has written the New Asia Biotech Leaders 2020 Report from the Monitor Group. I'll interview him when we get back for BTN, and he will get a Shanghai colleague to handle the BTNChina podcast which can be done over the phone by Xiaohua.
Needless to say, I have to tell you - this is as good as it gets for a first outing - Xiaohua and I have had to kiss a lot of frogs in our lives, so we must have reached some sort of lifetime quota and can now collect.
The quality of these people, how this works into our mutual/independent research, and how it works into future China Biotech AGI's is unquestionable.
So. Stay tuned for more reports from your correspondents on the scene in Shanghai.
