Medical sector lawmaker David Lam said the Hetao Shenzhen-Hong Kong Science and Technology Innovation Cooperation Zone will help expedite medical development in the SAR, as he called for closer cross-boundary cooperation over the next five years.

With Hong Kong preparing to come up with its first five-year plan, Lam said expanding clinical trials is key to turning the city into a major health and medical innovation hub.

In an interview with RTHK, the lawmaker spoke about the growth potential in collaborating with Shenzhen, citing a population of more than 80 million in the mainland cities of the Greater Bay Area compared with 7.5 million in Hong Kong.

“With more patients, with a bigger patient base, that means you can do the research quicker, so you can finish your clinical trial quicker, and then you can also radiate to other places. For a clinical trial that's useful for registering a drug, you need kind of international clinical trials,” he said.

“So to start with, if we start here and we have a population base of over 80 million, that makes clinical trial much easier than a population of 7.5 million. Eighty million is already more than the population of many countries in the world.”

While half of the world's top 10 pharmaceutical companies, including Pfizer and AstraZeneca, have set up shop in Hong Kong, Lam said the government could do more to attract others to come here.

Officials could, for instance, consider offering drugs developed at the Hetao zone the priority to be registered under the Hong Kong Centre for the Medical Products Regulation, he said.

The centre, which is expected to be set up by the end of this year, will directly approve applications for registration of medical products in the city based on clinical trial data, without relying on approval from other drug regulatory authorities.

“If we can prioritise what we innovate, what we take part in developing, that is only reasonable. Otherwise, why should people come here for R&D? R&D is very expensive, and Hong Kong is no cheap place for R&D. So that’s the upstream, you provide the infrastructure for them to develop R&D," Lam said.

"Mid-stream will be the clinical trials. We collaborate with Hetao area, the entire GBA, to project our clinical trials to the entire 80 million people.

"And then the downstream is the registration and the marketing.”

He added that local universities and the Hospital Authority can contribute to the clinical trials by, for example, taking part in the R&D efforts and adding to the patient base with those receiving public healthcare services.

Looking ahead, the lawmaker said he expects the movement of data and specimens at Hetao to become smoother over the next five years.

“Hetao is a zone where the transition or the movement of these materials and resources should be much more easier. It’s a contained area, but it consists of people and talents from both sides of the border. So together, they can pull together all the resources, all the data and all the specimens, and make all the research much faster and more efficient.”

The two-month public consultation for the city’s first inaugural five-year plan ends on Friday.



Edited by Edmond Fong