"A challenge often associated with high-growth industries is the friction created between organizations that want to innovate quickly, and regulators that want to ensure public safety is utmost at all times. We are seeing this with the recent emergence of the Chinese biotech and biopharmaceutical industries, who are innovating amidst newly defined regulatory processes. Chinese authorities are looking to develop these nascent domestic industries, and are looking to European and American models to help shape their own," says Dr Martina Bielefeld Sevigny, VP & GM of PerkinElmer Life Sciences Technology, China.

And this is where China's development zones have a strategic advantage. These zones are authorized to streamline the entire approval procedure pipeline. For example, TEDA is sanctioned to expedite its investment partners' sample testing, customs inspections and quarantine, as well as arranging tariff exemptions for equipment imports. While this does not mean drug approval is easier, as standards are still extremely strict, it does mean that unnecessary delays and bureaucratic barriers do not interfere with innovation.