Suzhou Undertakes 15 Biomedical Material Innovation Tasks

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the National Medical Products Administration jointly announced the list of shortlisted units for the second batch of the Biomedicine Material Innovation Task Challenge. Suzhou secured 15 seats across 14 units, becoming the city with the highest number of selected projects nationwide. This accounts for 17.4% of the national total and 75% of the selected projects in Jiangsu Province.

In this round of project selection, the micro-nano fiber composite material led by Peijia Medical has been successfully chosen, becoming one of the highlights among the innovative forces in biomedical materials in Suzhou. "Currently, most heart valve products used in clinical practice are derived from animal tissues, such as bovine pericardium, with durability typically lasting only 10 to 15 years, and there is also a certain risk of rejection with animal-derived materials," said Yi Kejing, Vice President of R&D at the Structural Division of Peijia Medical. The biggest breakthrough of this new material technology from Peijia Medical lies in the use of non-biological, inorganic polymer materials to manufacture valves that can perfectly simulate the functional layers of human autologous valve leaflets. This not only significantly reduces production costs but is also expected to have a much longer lifespan than current biological valve materials. At present, Peijia Medical's polymer valve has completed preclinical animal trials.

Haiwang Medical's independently developed novel material, block polyether amide resin, is expected to break the dependence on imported medical polymer materials. Liu Jiyong, General Manager of Haiwang Medical, introduced that this material can be used to manufacture three types of medical catheters, including peripheral thrombectomy catheters, microcatheters, and guide catheters. For a long time, the domestic market for these high-end medical materials has been almost monopolized by French companies, with a market size reaching tens of billions of yuan. Haiwang Medical's inclusion in the "List of Challenges" is expected to achieve the first domestic breakthrough in the application of polymer materials for peripheral thrombectomy catheters.

In recent years, to encourage the research and demonstration application of new materials, Suzhou has taken the lead among prefecture-level cities in China by issuing the "Guidance Catalogue for the First Batch Application Demonstration of Key New Materials," along with supporting recognition and funding incentives. This has greatly stimulated enterprises’ enthusiasm for the research and development of critical materials. To date, the new materials industry has become Suzhou’s third trillion-yuan industrial cluster, following electronic information and equipment manufacturing.