Biomanufacturing is an important frontier of current global technological innovation and industrial innovation, and a new future industry track that will be focused on development during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. It uses tiny cells as a 'production workshop' to convert raw materials such as sugar, straw and even carbon dioxide into important products such as medicines, food, chemicals, and energy needed for production and life through green, low-carbon, and sustainable biosynthesis methods. It has great potential to reshape traditional material production methods and can provide important support for better ensuring national food and energy security, improving people's health and well-being, and accelerating the development of comprehensive green transformation.
To firmly grasp the major strategic opportunities presented by the current new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, we must give full play to my country's comprehensive advantages of rich biological resources, complete industrial system, and broad market space, and accelerate the development of the bio-manufacturing industry.
The development of my country's biomanufacturing industry is accelerating
Currently, the development of my country's biomanufacturing industry is accelerating and showing new advantages. Since the beginning of this year, the integration of biomanufacturing with medicine, chemicals, energy, food, agriculture and other industries has accelerated, innovative results have continued to emerge, and industrial development vitality has continued to burst out.
The pharmaceutical field is the ‘main battlefield’ where biomanufacturing shows its prowess. This year, the development of biomedicine in my country has further accelerated. In the first half of the year alone, 17 innovative biological drugs were launched, accounting for more than 70% of last year's total. Among all approved new drugs, the proportion increased from 30% last year to about 50%. It can be said that biomanufacturing is empowering my country's medical innovation to shift gears and accelerate, becoming an important source of new drug research and development in the world, and providing more possibilities for improving the health and well-being of people in my country and around the world.
The chemical and energy fields are also undergoing an important transformation from black to green. my country has released a new version of the national standard for biodegradable plastic shopping bags, raising the degradation rate threshold to 90%, further accelerating the replacement of fossil-based materials by bio-based materials in packaging, medical and other fields. At the same time, "gutter oil" is also turning waste into treasure and flying into the blue sky. At present, nine airports across the country have completed the transformation of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) support facilities and passed certification. Four airports, including Beijing Daxing and Zhengzhou Xinzheng, have implemented regular refueling, and their cumulative services have guaranteed "low-carbon flights" for more than 120,000 flights.
More and more new bio-manufactured healthy foods are gradually entering daily life. Continuing the rapid growth trend last year, in the first half of this year, my country has approved four new food ingredients based on biological fermentation to be launched on the market. It has achieved domestic independence in the fields of healthy sugar, mycelium protein, and baby probiotics. Many products have entered large-scale production and are accelerating their application in market segments such as "zero-calorie" beverages and formula milk powder to meet the increasingly diverse nutritional and health needs of the whole society.
Biomanufacturing will accelerate its penetration into broad areas
In the future, as life sciences and biotechnology continue to advance, biomanufacturing will break through the current "point" applications and accelerate its penetration into the vast fields of industrial and agricultural production, food, clothing, housing and transportation, supporting the construction of a greener, low-carbon, sustainable and new picture of a future society with more "imaginative space".
Biomanufacturing will promote new changes in social production methods. Empowered by artificial intelligence technology, biomanufacturing innovation models will accelerate iterations and R&D and production efficiency will be greatly improved. In the future, many factories may appear in the form of "cell factories" to achieve green upgrades of traditional production methods. Straw is 'eaten' by microorganisms and 'spits out' various new materials that can be naturally degraded; waste gas and waste water are 'brewed' into high-value green fuels such as aviation kerosene and biodiesel through biological fermentation; editing genes and modifying cells is like writing code, producing more specific drugs, and effectively curing a large number of major diseases that are currently 'incurable'.
Biomanufacturing will lead to a new trend in social lifestyle. On the future dining table, protein foods grown in high-standard fermentation workshops will become common delicacies, while new sugar substitutes will make sweetness healthier and less burdensome; in future shopping malls, biodegradable materials will be more popular from shopping bags and packaging boxes to clothing, shoes and socks; when traveling in the future, whether we choose to fly or drive, green and environmentally friendly biofuels will "protect" us.
During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, my country's biomanufacturing industry will usher in opportunities to accelerate development and shape its advantages. From the perspective of cutting-edge trends, global biotechnology innovation will become more active. Artificial intelligence technology and biomanufacturing are accelerating the integration, and disruptive biotechnology continues to emerge. This will profoundly reshape the life science research, biotechnology development and industrial development paradigms, providing a major opportunity for industrial development to "change lanes and overtake". From the perspective of development foundation, favorable conditions for the development of biomanufacturing in my country continue to accumulate. The supply of high-end factors is more abundant, the cycle of investment, production and consumption is smoother, and the endogenous development momentum is stronger. Industrial advantages will accelerate the expansion of upstream and downstream high value-added links.
Accelerate the development of biomanufacturing industry into a new economic growth point
Biomanufacturing is not only about the present, but also about the future. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the development of bio-manufacturing has broad prospects and great potential. We must focus on laying a solid foundation, making up for shortcomings, giving full play to our advantages, seizing the initiative, and accelerating the development of bio-manufacturing industry into a new economic growth point in our country.
Strengthen policy coordination and improve industry governance. Promote the coordination and linkage between biomanufacturing industry policies and science and technology, finance, finance, and talent policies, and work in the same direction. Continue to improve the approval process and accelerate the launch of innovative biological drugs, biomaterials, biofuels, new biological foods and new feed ingredients to further smooth the cycle and stimulate vitality. Guide various localities to base on their own biological resources, technology and scene advantages, choose development directions according to local conditions, achieve dislocation and complementation, and build a systematic development pattern with reasonable layout.
Increase independent innovation and consolidate the foundation for innovation. Strengthen basic research and original innovation in the field of biomanufacturing, lay out and build a number of major innovation platforms, and produce more original results "from 0 to 1" in terms of basic principles, key processes, and major products. Focusing on key underlying technical tools such as high-end biological reagents, scientific research instruments, and core bacterial strains, we will concentrate our efforts on continuing to promote the iteration of research and development, and strive to build an independent and controllable technology system.
Accelerate industrial applications and achieve quality improvement and expansion. Focus on key areas such as biomedicine, biochemicals and energy, bio-agriculture and new foods, accelerate the verification and amplification of new technologies and new processes, the development and application promotion of benchmark products, and drive integrated breakthroughs in the entire industry chain with iconic major products. Make full use of the advantages of the domestic ultra-large-scale ola market, accelerate the opening up of scene barriers, smooth application channels, realize commercial closed loop, and accelerate the development of new bio-manufacturing technologies from samples to products, and from pilots to scale.
