A Study On China’s Biotechnology Industry Development

Since the1980s, biotechnology has been leading a new round of technological revolution worldwide. As a new leading industry, biotechnology industry is an important element in the rise and prolongation of economic hegemonies. Biotechnology is based on modern life science, and with recombinant DNA technology as the key technology, extensive cross-integration as the major development path. Development of biotechnology is expected to address some of the major issues facing the development of human society, such as the depletion of resources, human health and environmental pollution problems. Because there is very strong correlation between the biotechnology industry and other industries, its industrial development has a significant impact on the coordination of the society, economy and environment. The ability of biotechnological innovation and the level of industrialization will largely affect one country’s economic strength.Currently, the biotechnology industry is a sunrise industry on a global scale. World’s economic powerhouses are conducting leading industry transformation, placing the biotechnology industry as a strategic focus. So far, the global biotechnology industry has experienced more than forty years of development, from an emerging start-up industry into a medium-scale one. Currently there are four major developed regions, including the United States, Europe, Australia and Canada. In the world’s major developed regions, biotechnology industry is in the adjustment stage of its life cycle, reflecting in the slowdown of industrial scale, further improvement in industry concentration rate, and dynamic mergers&acquisitions activities.In China, the biotechnology industry is one of the national strategic emerging industries, attracting the state-level attention. In the past decade, China’s biotechnology industry took advantage of the "latecomer advantages", and achieved rapid development. The industry is beginning to take shape, and has formed some industrial clusters. However, there are still a great number of constraints existing in the process of industrial development. At this stage, the gap between China and developed countries in the scientific research area is relatively small. However, the application of biotechnology and the industrialization process is lagging behind. Therefore, an urgent need has been raised to strengthen the academic study on the foster mechanisms for biotechnology industry to seize opportunities in the "post-crisis" era.Based on this, the dissertation applies the three dimensional research framework of "technological innovation-institutional innovation-management innovation"(TIM), analyses the relevant characteristics of biotechnology, uses performance evaluation theory, industrial economics theory and property rights theories, supplemented by case studies and international comparison. This dissertation also utilizes AHP method, empirical analysis and case analysis methods to perform in-depth research on the development systems and policies of the biotechnology industry, which includes current status of industrial development, industrial characteristics, industrial organization status, industry clusters and enterprise management. Through these studies, this dissertation attempts to give suggestions on the optimization of the industrial policies, and proposes the correct development path of China’s biotechnology industry. The results also have some reference for the development of other strategic emerging industries.The dissertation is divided into seven sections.The first part is introduction which identifies the practical and theoretical significance of this article, gives some literature review and comments on the biotechnology industry development, and then puts forward the ideas of this study, the logical framework and research methods, summarizes the innovative points of this dissertation and the inadequacies.The second part consists of the concepts and theories, In this section, several concepts involved in this study were defined, including biotechnology, biotechnology industry and strategic emerging industries. In addition, theoretical framework of this dissertation is introduced from three dimensions:technological innovation, institutional innovation and management innovation.The third part focuses on the status of biotechnology industry development. In this section, in-depth analysis is conducted on the status of the industrial development, which includes:industrial development stage, the main characteristics of the industry, domestic and foreign biotechnology industry development status, as well as the major factors restricting the development of China’s biotechnology industry.The fourth part is study on technological innovation. By analyzing the course of technology development, the main characteristics, this dissertation proposes three major development paths of modern biotechnology and puts forward the mode of transformation from technology to industry. On this basis, this part analyzes the status quo of China’s biotechnology innovation, and points out the major constraints.The fifth part focuses on institutional innovation. In this section, the major biotechnology industrial organization models are discussed, including risk-sharing mechanism, technology alliances and industrial clusters with supply chain integration. Based on this, this section analyses the optimal institutional structure from three dimensions: government regulation system, elements forming system and enterprise system.The sixth part focuses on management innovation. In this section, the development of biotechnology companies was studied. The major aspects are: performance analysis, major characteristics, and enterprise technology selection method.The seventh part gives policy recommendations. The sector summarizes the changes of China’s biotechnology industrial policies during the past decade, and then puts forward policy recommendations.