In the 10th “Chinese Innovation & Entrepreneurship Competition” just held in October of 2021, Shanghai SYMRAY BIOPHARMA Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as SYMRAY BIOPHARMA) was successfully shortlisted for the national competition, and its competition event “Research and development of class I new drugs based on GPCR targets for tumor therapy” was highly recognized by judges and won the “Excellent Enterprise” award. Since its establishment in 2019, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA has made a lot of innovative achievements. It has won two national gold awards, five Shanghai municipal awards and one provincial major research project, making it an excellent biopharmaceutical enterprise in Shanghai.
SYMRAY BIOPHARMA’s class A new drug research and development project based on GPCR targetwon the Excellent Enterprise Award in the10th China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition National Competition
Why is the biopharmaceutical industry so hot and how about its prospects on earth? How did SYMRAY BIOPHARMA achieve such a success in such a competitive field?
In this regard, the think tank research department of the Shanghai International School of Chief Technology Officer (hereinafter referred to as the “CTO School”) interviewed Mr. Zhao Wenxiang, CEO of SYMRAY BIOPHARMA, to listen to his unique understanding and perception of the biopharmaceutical industry, start-ups and talent issues.
01 | On the road of entrepreneurship, opportunities and challenges coexist
The biopharmaceutical industry is booming in China and is gradually rising, becoming an indispensable industry in the national development goals. It can be seen that a large number of biopharmaceutical enterprises have sprung up like mushrooms, domestic enterprises have made steady progress and international enterprises have entered China, making the industry present a prosperous scene. When talking about the current biopharmaceutical industry, Mr. Zhao Wenxiang affirmed, “The current policy environment is very good, no matter at the national level, the provincial and municipal level, or the district and county level, they have given great policy preferences.”The government’s support for the pharmaceutical industry makes it more convenient for the settlement of enterprises, promotion of projects and recruitment of talents, promoting the continuous progress of the pharmaceutical industry.
When the industry has a prosperous trend, competition will intensify and the ensuing problems and difficulties will find every enterprise in the industry.” There are different difficulties and problems facing different companies and companies at different stages of development.”Zhao Wenxiang stressed that enterprises should analyze the current specific problems facing the enterprises in the development process and seek their suitable solutions. Problems and difficulties are not terrible. Only when opportunities and challenges coexist can an industry be most dynamic. In this way, it has both a promising future and the competition pressure from peers, which form a joint force to promote the upgrading and progress of the whole industry.
02 | Find problems in development; talent is the top priority
Shanghai SYMRAY BIOPHARMA Co., Ltd., founded in 2019, is a high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of innovative biological drugs. Through the integrated antibody drug research and development technology platform, the company carries out the innovative discovery of different types of biological drugs such as monoclonal antibody, double antibody, nano antibody and ADC and focuses on the research and development of antibody drug breeding. In the words of Mr. Zhao Wenxiang, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA’s positioning is to provide solutions for biopharmaceutical source innovation. If the research and development cycle of a biological drug is compared to a relay race, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA is running the first leg. The mission and positioning of an enterprise determine its strategic direction and to a certain extent, the problems it will face. Zhao Wenxiang said that in the early stage of entrepreneurship, financing was very difficult, and he once jointed with more than 100 investment companies and institutions. Funding is very important to get a company off the ground, but problems change as businesses get on the right track.” Now the homogenization competition within the industry is fierce, with capital no longer the key problem, talent, products and research and development direction being the key at the present stage of SYMRAY BIOPHARMA.”This is a weapon powerful enough to break through an encirclement for enterprises facing competition. Especially in the face of homogeneous competition, only by making your own characteristics and values can you stand out from a large number of similar enterprises. Zhao Wenxiang said:” if everyone does micro innovation, then micro innovation is not innovation”.
Among these weapons, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA pays more attention to talents, “for the innovative thinking in the brains of excellent talents is the most valuable”.Because of this demand, Zhao Wenxiang has a profound understanding of talent issues. He talked about two aspects of the talent issue: “How to obtain” and “how to manage”.“The foundation of innovation is academic accumulation and innovative thinking. Of course, other aspects are also important, but SYMRAY BIOPHARMA values these two points more and talent is the embodiment of the two elements. It is difficult to generate innovative talents through large-scale production. This also leads to fierce competition for talents, no matter what the industry.” “The second issue is how to manage talents after obtaining talents. Talents have their own ideas, so how to make talents of different majors and specialties share the work and cooperate with each other and how all kinds of resources such as human, assets, materials and information efficiently assist and support innovation is a very important issue.”
From the perspective of enterprises, Mr. Zhao Wenxiang also put forward his own solutions to the talent problem. He especially emphasized the role of mechanism, believing that the mechanism is the rules of the game for companies. An excellent person must have a clear and reasonable plan for himself. For an enterprise, an excellent system is also essential if it wants to become an excellent enterprise. “System is the guarantee for talents to play a greater value. Whoever has a more competitive mechanism will be able to occupy a place in the market.”Both international and domestic, there are a large number of excellent enterprises, no matter what industry can find models worth learning. However, not every excellent enterprise system can be mechanically applied. It is necessary to investigate the time nature of the system, the difference of the industry and the characteristics of the enterprise itself. “Just as Mr. Zhao Wenxiang said, his “ten-character policy” for establishing a mechanism is based on reality, facing problems and seeking truth from facts.”
03 | Universities empower enterprises to work together to solve talent problem
In July 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Education jointly issued the List of Industry-Education Integrated Enterprises and Industry-Education Integrated Pilot Cities. At the same time, the Ministry of Science and Technology held a special press conference, talking about the deep integration mechanism of industry-university-research cooperation led by enterprises and advocating the development mode of industry-university-research cooperation. In the context of national efforts to promote the integration of industry and education, high-tech industries and technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises are the biggest beneficiaries. For this, Mr. Zhao Wenxiang also said, “Universities are the source of the source, the central pivot of knowledge experience collection and extraction.”
Mr. Zhao Wenxiang, who has started his own business twice, is not only the CEO of SYMRAY BIOPHARMA, but also a doctoral student in the East China Normal University. “Universities have good methodology, which can extract experience into knowledge and build the fragmented knowledge into a set of system in a systematic way.”With this understanding of universities, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA attaches great importance to the cooperation with universities. At present, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA has a close cooperation with the CTO School of the East China Normal University. “We hope to cultivate excellent high-level talents necessary for the growth and development of our enterprise by participating in the training courses of the CTO School.”The CTO executive training courses provided by the CTO School can provide training and learning on laws and regulations, management methods and finance. This kind of all-round experiential teaching method is also needed by most enterprise management. Talking about the effect of the training course, Mr. Zhao said with great satisfaction: “it is very meaningful and a very good attempt! After participating in the course, I think everyone (SYMRAY BIOPHARMA’s employees) has changed greatly in the dimension, flexibility, depth and breadth of thinking, which is very gratifying and happy for me.”
Mr. Zhao Wenxiang delivered a speechin the first term of Leading CTO Career Breakthrough Class for Pharmaceutical and Health Enterprises in CTO School
In terms of industry-university-research cooperation, Zhao also has his own thoughts. Information asymmetry exists between enterprises and universities in the cultivation of talents. On the one hand, enterprises need excellent talents; on the other hand, colleges and universities are willing to train talents, but both sides do not know what kind of talents universities can provide to meet the needs of enterprises and what abilities and quality enterprises need talents to have. “How to establish and broaden the channel of talent training, especially the sustainable and stable channel, is the problem that needs to be solved at present.”
Of course, the cultivation of talents cannot just rely on universities as enterprises should also make efforts to provide training and promotion platforms for employees. SYMRAY BIOPHARMA can be said to be a model in this respect, setting up the Scientific Research Lectures, Spark Reading Club, and Talent Business School for employees.The Scientific Research Lecture provides employees with a fixed way to learn and share and they can discuss their academic expertise or difficulties in the research process. Spark Reading Club allows employees to share some books and articles that they have read recently to improve their cultural literacy and form information exchange and cultural communication. The Talent Business School pays more attention to management personnel of the manager level and above, sharing their experience in growth, management tools and methods and even how to design and display a PPT. As long as there is a need, the enterprise will provide appropriate help.
04 | Assist pharmaceutical research and development, create a greater talent exchange platform
In 2020, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA reached cooperation with pharmaceutical enterprises on its independently developed antitumor and auto-immune diseases related drugs. With the continuous increase of research and development pipelines and the gradual expansion of business, the company’s development got on the fast track. Recently, Zhao Wenxiang has been busy upgrading company facilities, relocating sites and laboratories and pursuing higher-level and more comfortable research and development and office environment.
With outstanding achievements in the new drug research and development, SYMRAY BIOPHARMA also sets its eyes on a more macro and more advanced level. In terms of talents, in addition to the internal training courses of SYMRAY BIOPHARMA, Mr. Zhao Wenxiang also has a very good idea - opening up a field of more than 200 square meters for academic exchanges and brainstorming as our new office area and I call it “talent magnetic field”. We will invite more outstanding young scientists and experts in the biopharmaceutical field to SYMRAY BIOPHARMA for academic discussions, brainstorming and thinking collisions. This is what we lack, but need very much. There are also different forms of brainstorming within SYMRAY BIOPHARMA, highly recognized by everyone. I want to make it a stage for interaction and collision of creative inspirations.
“Innovative enterprises need platforms for communication, various observation perspectives and resources in all dimensions.”In the interview, we found that Zhao Wenxiang not only has a clear development plan for his own enterprise, but also observes and analyzes the whole industry and market beyond SYMRAY BIOPHARMA, hoping to establish a talent exchange and information sharing platform. In the interview, Zhao Wenxiang continuously emphasized the importance of talents, which makes people feel that SYMRAY BIOPHARMA is indeed a company full of humanistic care and excellent enterprise atmosphere will also make its development more competitive and resilient. “The upgrading, iteration and circulation of talents are conducive to innovation.”Zhao Wenxiang and SYMRAY BIOPHARMA are working hard to add vitality to the enterprise and the whole industry and contribute their own strength to the innovative research and development of the biopharmaceutical industry.
Source | CTO School Think Tank Team
Authors | ZHU Wangning, ZHANG Zhening
Editor | XIA Mei