As Guangzhou strives to foster and develop new quality productive forces in the healthcare, life sciences and biomedicine sectors, a key question emerges: how to accelerate in-depth integration of industry, university, research and clinical practice, enabling hospital research teams and enterprises to accurately locate partners and seal cooperation deals. On the morning of August 22, at the Achievement Translation & Medical-Engineering Interdisciplinary Exchange Conference of the 2026 Guangzhou Medical and Health Industry Expo, Version 2.0 of the Guangzhou Hospital-Enterprise Resource Exchange Digital Platform, jointly built by Guangzhou Daily Newspaper Group, the Guangzhou Alliance of Research Hospitals and the Guangzhou Medical Expo Organizing Committee, was officially released.

As Guangzhou’s first digital platform dedicated to hospital-enterprise resource interaction, the platform brings together 18 Grade A tertiary medical institutions including the First Affiliated Hospital of Sun Yat-sen University and Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital, over 600 leading principal investigators (PIs) across specialized disciplines, and links innovative demands from hundreds of biomedical enterprises. It creates a new integrated service model covering scientific research, achievement translation and industrialization. Centered on digital empowerment, resource aggregation and co-ecology development, the platform aims to build a full-factor matchmaking hub for the biomedicine industry.

A representative from the Pharmaceutical Administration Division of the Guangzhou Municipal Health Commission addressed the conference, stating that the modern connotation of medical-engineering integration extends beyond the traditional integration of industry, university, research and clinical practice. It now encompasses ten stakeholders: industry, university, research, clinical practice, end users, regulatory authorities, government, enterprises, investment institutions and service providers. Links including lab-scale testing, pilot production, proof-of-concept verification and market commercialization require coordinated efforts from all participants across the industrial chain, who jointly seek technical partners and market buyers.

The newly launched Version 2.0 of the Guangzhou Hospital-Enterprise Resource Exchange Digital Platform provides digital infrastructure supporting precise matching and full-chain collaboration for cross-stakeholder resource alignment. A person in charge of the Health Partner Studio of Guangzhou Daily explained that the platform pioneers a service system integrating four value chains: clinical demand chains drive innovation chains, while achievement translation chains energize industrial chains. Four core functional modules have been rolled out: Find PI, Policy Library, Performance Tracking and Achievement Selection. Dedicated demand submission portals collect demands from hospitals and enterprises, which are reviewed and released on a regular basis. Enterprises may instantly access municipal policies supporting high-quality biomedical industrial development, retrieve information on outstanding specialized PIs and research teams, and conduct real-time matching against corporate technical bottlenecks, forming a closed-loop ecosystem of demand release, targeted push notifications and one-click connection.

As an official supporting platform of the Guangzhou Medical Expo, the digital platform has added a real-time contract signing module. Platform statistics show that as of 12:00 noon on August 22, 14 cooperation projects (including scheduled pending signing projects) had been confirmed during the expo, with a total intended cooperation value exceeding RMB 3 billion.

Two dedicated submission modules are available to directly collect cross-sector demands, covering joint clinical research projects, clinical trial proposals to be carried out in Guangzhou, subject recruitment for ongoing clinical trials, and translational projects open for investment attraction.

In addition, a Resource Exhibition zone categorizes displays by hospitals and enterprises respectively. Hospital profiles feature institutional introductions, GCP trial centers, research teams and catalogs of scientific achievements; enterprises are classified into medical devices, biomedicine, traditional Chinese medicine and third-party service providers. A special Hospital-Enterprise Cooperation column leverages well-known media IPs of Guangzhou Daily such as Top Departments and High-Level Specialties, reserving dedicated coverage space for high-impact cooperation projects.

The exchange conference centered on interdisciplinary integration of medicine and engineering, and the industrial application of innovative medical technologies. Discussions covered core themes including collaborative medical-engineering innovation models, R&D of novel medical technologies, clinical demand matchmaking and the commercialization of research achievements.

• Chen Hongzhen, Senior Engineer, Evaluation & Certification Center of Guangdong Drug Administration: Interpretation of the Implementation Plan for the Spring Rain Action to Boost Clinical Innovation Translation of Medical Devices in Guangdong Province (2026–2028)

• Zhang Yepeng, Director, Guangzhou Yixing Medical Device Proof-of-Concept Center: The Medical Innovation Power Model and Practical Experience in Medical-Engineering Translation

• Hu Peng, Deputy Dean, Nanjing Institute of Translational Medicine: Practices for Launching Clinical Innovation and Achievement Translation Pipelines

• Song Jian, Associate Professor, School of Biomedical Engineering, Sun Yat-sen University: Medical-Engineering Integration Exploration for the Translational Development of Artificial Ligaments

• Li Jia, Founding Partner, Shenzhen Yun Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd.: Industrial Capital Empowerment – Incubation and Capital Support Pathways for Medical-Engineering Integration Projects

• Zhang Wenyong, CEO, Greater Bay Area International Clinical Trials Institute: Hong Kong’s supportive policies under the "1+" new drug registration mechanism for clinical trials

The conference concluded with a roundtable dialogue on medical-engineering translation, where participating experts held in-depth exchanges on collaborative medical-engineering innovation and the commercialization of research outcomes.

Source: Guangzhou Daily