Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, April 26th Title: Digitalization on the "chain" of the pharmaceutical industry! 7 departments issued documents to send new signals

Xinhua News Agency reporters Zhou Yuan and Zhang Xinxin

On the afternoon of the 25th, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the 20th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee that it is necessary to promote the deep integration of artificial intelligence technological innovation and industrial innovation.

"Break through a number of key technologies for digital and intelligentization in the pharmaceutical industry", "build more than 100 digital and intelligent drug and equipment factories", "cultivate more than 30 outstanding service providers for digital and intelligent transformation of the pharmaceutical industry"...

Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the Ministry of Commerce, the National Health Commission and other seven departments jointly issued the "Implementation Plan for Digital and Intelligent Transformation of the Pharmaceutical Industry (2025-2030)", sending a positive signal of "promoting the deep integration of the new generation of information technology and the pharmaceutical industry chain."

The high-quality development of the pharmaceutical industry is an important task to promote new industrialization and build a manufacturing power, and an important support for implementing the Healthy China strategy. In the view of industry insiders, the implementation plan issued by the seven departments further consolidates the foundation and enhances momentum for the high-quality development of my country's pharmaceutical industry.

On March 31, technicians conducted product research in the laboratory at Anhui Hecheng Biomedical Technology Co., Ltd. located in Feixi County. Xinhua News Agency (photo by Xu Yong)

What changes will the pharmaceutical industry be changed with the support of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence?

Look at the R&D field, innovate traditional paradigms through technologies such as artificial intelligence-assisted target screening and compound synthesis path prediction, and promote precise drug development through the integration of gene sequencing and clinical data, and virtual experimental tools will significantly improve R&D efficiency;

Look at the production link, with intelligent transformation as the core, and relying on the digital workshop to achieve real-time regulation of process parameters, it will promote the construction of an intelligent quality traceability system covering the entire life cycle of drugs;

Look at the circulation field, and improve supply chain resilience with the help of intelligent logistics and blockchain traceability systems, the digital marketing network will effectively extend the tentacles of grassroots drug services... …

The power of digital and intelligent transformation, pharmaceutical companies feel it sincerely: Kailaiying Pharmaceutical Group has deeply integrated digital and intelligent technology with innovative drug research and development, and its continuous reaction technology shortens the traditional 21-day production cycle to 8 days; the enterprise-level energy management platform developed by China Resources Sanjiu achieves an accuracy of 96% through the "data dual-mode analysis engine", and saves more than one million yuan in annual costs...

"Under the joint promotion of relevant policy support and continuous industrial innovation, my country's pharmaceutical industry automation, informatization and digital development have taken solid steps." A relevant person in charge of the Consumer Products Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.

How to further promote the digital transformation of the pharmaceutical industry? The plan proposes two-step development goals - by 2027, the digital transformation of the pharmaceutical industry will make important progress, including breaking through a number of key digital and intelligent technologies for the pharmaceutical industry, developing and promoting more than 100 high-performance products in the fields of intelligent pharmaceutical equipment, testing instruments and pharmaceutical industry software, building more than 100 digital and intelligent pharmaceutical equipment factories, building more than 10 pharmaceutical large-scale innovation platforms, digital and intelligent technology application verification and pilot platforms, etc.

By 2030, pharmaceutical industry enterprises above the designated size will basically achieve full coverage of digital and intelligent transformation, the full chain data system of the pharmaceutical industry will be further improved, and the digital and intelligent transformation ecosystem of the pharmaceutical industry will be further improved.

14 specific work tasks highlight the "construction drawing" for the digital transformation of the pharmaceutical industry -

Strengthen the R&D and application of digital and intelligent products of the pharmaceutical industry; encourage pharmaceutical enterprises, medical institutions, scientific research institutes, etc. to cooperate in the construction of the pharmaceutical industry big data platform to form high-quality data sets in the fields of R&D, production, clinical, and big health; encourage the construction of a number of high-performance cloud computing platforms, blockchains, data centers, 5G industry virtual private networks, Internet of Things and other information infrastructure...

"The solution covers sub-fields such as chemical drugs, traditional Chinese medicines, biological products and medical devices, from the research and development of new drugs to improve efficiency with the help of artificial intelligence, to the intelligent upgrading of factories in production and manufacturing, and then to the circulation link to realize full-process traceability of drugs and supply chain management, etc., forming a systematic digital and intelligent transformation guidance framework." Yu Xiaohui, director of the China Institute of Information and Communications, said.

A relevant person in charge of the Consumer Products Industry Department of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said that it will work closely with relevant departments to form a policy synergy, strengthen the effective connection of policies in the entire chain, encourage pharmaceutical industry enterprises and upstream and downstream enterprises in the industrial chain to carry out cross-regional cooperation, and promote the integration of domestic and foreign regulations, standard certification, and business technology exchanges in the field of digital and intelligentization of the pharmaceutical industry.

The east wind has come, and my country's pharmaceutical industry is taking advantage of the "number" and improving "intelligence" to increase efficiency.