Chinese vaccine development companies are raising the bar to meet international standards. However, access to foreign markets remains a challenge. Shanghai BravoBio, which has a strong and effective network in the biotechnology industry, is facilitating vaccine development in China.

The idea behind setting up such a company came to Dr Wu Ke when he was working with Shanghai Zerun Biotechnology. He realized the hurdles that a vaccine development company faces in reaching out to the international markets and came up with the concept of starting a platform for both Chinese companies and international vaccine companies to share knowledge and technologies for developing vaccines.

Some of his colleagues from Shanghai Zerun, with expertize in different departments of vaccine development, such as R&D, production, quality, logistics and marketing, joined him to form Shanghai BravoBio. "After many years of collaborations, we have developed true friendship and trust in each other. We are different individuals, but we all share the same value of developing vaccine for China market and have the characteristic of being realistic, reliable and optimistic," says Dr Wu Ke talking about the team at Shanghai BravoBio, adding that the most important factor is that they complement each other.

Leveraging the industry experience in vaccine quality control, manufacture, regulatory affairs and R&D management, technology transfer and facility evaluation, Shanghai BravoBio is assisting China-based companies to bring innovation in human vaccine development through technology transfer from the international market.

Adopting the collaboration model in R&D assistance and market development, it is also supporting a Beijing-based biopharma firm to set up a joint venture focused on R&D, manufacture and marketing of new generation diagnostic reagents against infectious diseases, thus creating a pipeline of around 10 products. In another initiative, BravoBio is supporting Chinese Academy of Sciences for research on new vaccines to fight infectious and tropical diseases, and is also assisting the academy in industrialization and commercialization of their state-funded research projects.