The Central Government Supports High-Level Reforms and Opening Up in Pudong: Comprehensive optimization of foreign capital access, technological innovation, international talent, and government functions, with all-around benefits for medical and pharmaceutical innovation!

The General Office of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the "Comprehensive Reform Pilot Implementation Plan for Pudong New Area (2023-2027)" on January 22.

The piece suggests granting Pudong New Area greater autonomy in key areas and critical links of reform, supporting deeper reforms and higher levels of opening up, providing support for Pudong New Area to become a leading zone for the construction of socialist modernization, and playing a better exemplary and leading role in the comprehensive construction of a socialist modernized country and the advancement of Chinese-style modernization.

Medical services and innovative medical devices will benefit comprehensively, with excerpts related to the medical system and innovative medical devices in the document:

·  Explore orderly relaxation of foreign capital access restrictions in the service consumption market for telecommunications services, medical health, etc.

·  Establish a collaborative innovation mechanism for biomedicine, promote clinical research cooperation among medical institutions, universities, and research institutes, allow new biopharmaceutical products to be priced in reference to international counterparts according to regulations, and support the development of the innovative drug and medical device industry. Support the construction of a Yangtze River Delta medical organization bank in line with international medical ethics and management and operational rules.

·  Explore the formulation of ethical rules in global frontier scientific fields such as artificial intelligence and biomedicine, establish a collaborative review mechanism, and build a rapid channel for ethical review.

·  Promote the expansion of high-quality medical resources and the rational allocation of medical and health resources. Continuously optimize the management of drugs and medical devices. Build an international medical services cluster area and expand the opening up of medical health services. Support international medical institutions in establishing medical institutions in joint ventures or cooperative ways. Improve the public health system, perfect the major epidemic prevention, control and treatment system, and emergency response mechanisms. Improve the elderly service system that coordinates home and community institutions with medical and nursing care, encouraging the provision of inclusive elderly care services.