US drug maker Eli Lilly and Company has made an investment in the Chinese city's pharmaceutical industry through its venture capital arm Lilly Asia Ventures. The move was welcomed by Hangzhou and vice mayor Tong Guili promised full support to the investment project.
The signing ceremony was held earlier this month for the agreement between Lilly Asia Ventures and Chinese Peptide Company, a Hangzhou-based biomedical company specialising in research and production of peptides, a kind of pharmaceutical intermediate.
The sum of the invested money is not available, but the investment is termed as a strategic one.
Vice mayor Tong Guili met with Darren Carroll, a vice president of Eli Lilly and Company, before attending the signing ceremony.
Tong told the visiting American guest that the biomedical industry will witness a big development in China during the next few years, and the market prospect for biomedical products will be "extraordinarily good".
The vice mayor said the Hangzhou municipal government will give "full support to the cooperation between Eli Lilly and the Chinese Peptide Company", noting that Hangzhou is China's national industrial base for biological and high-tech industries.
Briefing Carroll on the city's advantages for the development of the biomedical industry, the vice mayor expressed the hope that Eli Lilly will introduce more of its biomedical projects into Hangzhou.
A number of world leaders in the pharmaceutical industry, such as Sanofi, Merck and Pfizer, have already established production bases in Hangzhou and enjoyed a profitable return of investment, the vice mayor added.
