Media365
Many world-class cities are prioritising efforts to enhance their health technology infrastructures to attract more clinical trials and research projects. These can offer many benefits not only to pharmaceutical companies and research institutes, but also – potentially – give the public better access to innovative treatment options and raise the overall quality of their healthcare system.
Hong Kong, backed by two top‑ranked medical schools and one of the world’s most active capital markets, is playing a leading role in nurturing biotech companies as part of its goal to develop into a world-class health and medical innovation hub, which was a vision outlined in Chief Executive John Lee Ka-chiu’s 2023 policy address.
The city is currently home to more than 260 listed healthcare and biotech companies with a combined market capitalisation of over HK$4.8 trillion (US$613 billion) – a result of supportive policies such as Hong Kong stock exchange’s Chapter 18A regime, which enables pre‑revenue biotech companies to list and scale globally.
It is currently Asia’s largest – and the world’s second‑biggest – biotech fundraising centre, featuring a diverse investment base that includes global institutional funds, healthcare specialist funds and investors from mainland China and across the region.
Hong Kong’s abundant public and private funding opportunities could help support these companies’ research and development (R&D) efforts – a fundamental element for any clinical trial project, which often costs more than US$2 billion and can take more than a decade from start to finish.
In particular, the city government’s Innovation Technology Commission currently offers more than 50 funding schemes focusing on areas ranging from R&D to talent development.
Meanwhile, Hong Kong has also been enhancing its healthcare regulations to ease innovation and strengthen its position as a world-class clinical research hub.
One major milestone was the establishment of the Greater Bay Area International Clinical Trial Institute in 2024. Located at the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park, it serves as a platform for cross-border, multi-centre clinical trials by leveraging southern China’s Greater Bay Area development zone and its population of over 86 million to enhance Hong Kong’s clinical trial capacity and efficiency.
Recent key initiatives include the government’s plan to establish the Hong Kong Centre for Medical Products Regulation by the end of this year to consolidate the oversight of Western and Chinese medicines and medical devices under a single authority. Starting this year, Hong Kong’s Department of Health will also implement a “primary evaluation” system for new drug registration in phases, with full implementation targeted by 2030.
Meanwhile, the government also introduced the “1+” mechanism in 2023, which allows new drugs, vaccines, and cell and gene therapies supported by local clinical data and expert endorsement to apply for registration in Hong Kong with approval from one recognised overseas regulator.
As of last month, 19 new drugs had been registered as a result of the programme – seven of which are listed on the city’s Hospital Authority Drug Formulary.
Moreover, the city’s Hospital Authority is also setting up the Office for Introducing Innovative Drugs and Medical Devices to allow local patients to gain faster access to new treatments.
In 2021, Hong Kong and health authorities in Guangdong province introduced a measure that allows Hong Kong-registered drugs and medical devices used in the city’s public hospitals to also be administered in the bay area development zone. Up to the end of February, 66 drugs and 87 devices had been cleared for use as a result of this programme.
Additionally, a report published by Britain’s National Institute for Health and Care Research has shown that every £1 (US$1.35) investment in clinical trials can yield up to £7.6 in economic benefits – highlighting the commercial potential of increasing the number of these studies. Other potential advantages of increasing the number of clinical trials in Hong Kong include enhancing healthcare professionals’ research experience.
Together, these measures aim to shorten approval timelines, strengthen local regulatory expertise and give pharmaceutical and biotech companies a faster and more streamlined pathway to market, while offering earlier access to innovative drugs and medical devices for eligible patients.
Life and health technology is one of the five priority sectors of Hong Kong’s Office for Attracting Strategic Enterprises’ (OASES), a government initiative launched in 2022 to attract high-potential overseas and mainland companies to establish or expand their operations in the city. The other four targeted industries are artificial intelligence and data science, financial technology, advanced manufacturing and new energy technology, and cultural and creative technology.
As of last October, OASES had established partnerships with more than 100 strategic enterprises, with 30 of them being firms in the life and health technology industry, including four of the world’s top pharmaceutical companies.
One of them is GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), the London-headquartered multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company, which has had a presence in Hong Kong since the 1980s. It currently runs an office in the city with about 100 staff carrying out commercial, medical, regulatory, compliance and legal functions.
Nicholas Teo, general manager of GSK Hong Kong and Macau, says: “Hong Kong is one of GSK’s fastest markets for launching innovation. Its healthcare system archetype, combining both public and private operators, enables innovation to be launched very swiftly into the market.
“Our operations have grown significantly in recent years, but our ambition has always been to deliver innovative healthcare that serves the health needs of the Hong Kong population. We are able to create best practice examples of how we can bring innovation to market and deliver value to people for other GSK markets.”
Last year, GSK became an OASES strategic enterprise – a move that will help the company leverage Hong Kong’s global business connections to expand its innovative drug registrations, apply big data to support market access and healthcare policy, and deepen collaboration with the city’s universities and research institutions.
It also signed a tripartite memorandum of understanding with the city’s Greater Bay Area International Clinical Trial Institute and the University of Hong Kong’s LKS Faculty of Medicine, which marked a milestone in advancing Hong Kong‑led clinical research and real-world evidence generation partnerships.
The collaboration initially focused on understanding the structures of electronic health records in Hong Kong and other major cities in the bay area development zone, with the aim of identifying potential gaps and devising solutions to build data connectivity throughout the region. Subsequently, the three parties will conduct a pilot study that evaluates adult vaccination on shingles prevention and its long-term health outcomes.
Teo says OASES has played a vital role in bringing GSK together with the right stakeholders so it can contribute earlier to creating solutions. “We are not here to be transactional,” he says. “We want to provide and collaborate as a partner for a sustainable healthcare system that rewards innovation. OASES ensures our projects deliver not only the evidence to show better health benefits or outcomes through prevention, but that they are also financially viable for patients and other players in the industry.”
He believes Hong Kong serves as an example of how evidence-led decision-making can be scaled across the bay area development zone and beyond.
“We will be able to explore health outcomes that also demonstrate the broader value of a medication, not just for treating the disease, but across the wider therapy area,” Teo says.
“In the future, when Hong Kong becomes a primary regulator itself, there is potential for even more rapid innovation entering the market.”
The city’s role as a global business hub, coupled with its location serving as a gateway between the mainland and the rest of the world, also enables Chinese firms to expand their operations overseas.
One of these companies, Tigermed, a leading clinical research solutions provider founded in 2004 in the city of Hangzhou, in East China’s Zhejiang province, has premises in Asia, Europe, Australia and the US, and more than 11,000 staff working on drug and medical device development from preclinical stages through to commercialisation.
It set up its Hong Kong office in 2011 and was listed on the stock exchange in 2020. In 2023, it became an OASES strategic enterprise and established its international headquarters in the city.
Hao Wu, Tigermed’s executive director and co-president, says Hong Kong is an ideal base for the company’s global expansion because of its status as a global financial hub. Its listing in the city had broadened its financing channels and shareholder base, he says.
The city’s reputation as a centre for R&D has also been another attraction, with the company benefiting from OASES’ ability to connect its partners with potential collaborators and other stakeholders.
“Hong Kong’s hospitals have highly trained physicians and many of them have been educated abroad,” Wu says. “These institutions also adhere to international clinical practice standards and are comparable to leading clinical research centres in the West. This makes Hong Kong particularly suitable for highly innovative and early-stage clinical trials.”
He says Tigermed was able to complete clinical trials, for example, into the hepatitis B virus for a client ahead of schedule in 2024, which had exceeded enrolment targets.
Thanks to support from OASES, Tigermed has also developed closer collaboration with the Hong Kong-Shenzhen Innovation and Technology Park and is considering opening an office there. The company hopes to continue to help mainland biotech companies to conduct trials overseas, as well as support international firms to run these studies in Hong Kong and other parts of the bay area development zone.
“Many innovative pharmaceutical companies from mainland China have also chosen to list in Hong Kong,” Wu says. “Doing so has helped a large number of domestic innovators gain opportunities to go global. We look forward to working with more Hong Kong‑based companies to advance side by side on the international stage.”
