In China, Fiocruz visits health innovation centers and focuses on new partnerships

Last week, on a trip to China, Fiocruz was able to strengthen partnerships and prospect future cooperation in health technology and innovation, especially in the areas of vaccines, biologicals and advanced therapies. The Foundation's vice president for Health Production and Innovation, Marco Krieger, and the director of the Immunobiological Technology Institute (Bio-Manguinhos), Maurício Zuma, were in the Asian country to visit health technology centers and to take part in meetings with partners and a symposium on opportunities in health between Brazil and China.

Krieger and Zuma visited the Shanghai Innovation Center and the Wuxi Innovation Center, where they also met with researchers. In addition to these visits, they participate in a symposium on health innovation focusing on the challenges and opportunities in health innovation in Brazil and China. On the occasion, the vice president of Health Production and Innovation and the director of Bio-Manguinhos gave institutional presentations about Fiocruz to an audience of more than 100 people.

During the trip, it was also possible to interact with companies that produce vaccines and advanced therapies, as Krieger explained. "We had a rewarding experience getting to know the two innovation centers; where, by aligning the demands brought by the health systems with the companies' innovation capacity, with the capacity to foster innovation in China, we were able to see the development of the projects of more than 150 companies with very disruptive innovations. We mainly focused on some potential cooperation in vaccines, biologicals and advanced therapies," commented the vice president.

The trip to China was at the invitation of the Shanghai International Life Science Innovation Campus (iCampus), built in partnership with the City of Shanghai and operated by Astrazeneca as the iCampus lead company.