Business Development and Marketing in Shanghai
Wouter Beumer in his internship at Shanghai Genomics, May 2008
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“Shanghai Genomics, Inc (SG), a drug discovery/development company was founded in August 2001, by US-returnees Dr. Ying Luo and Dr. Jun Wu, with funding of 43 million RMB from Shanghai Venture Capital Company and Shanghai Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park Corp. The company is located in the high technology area of Pudong, the eastern part of Shanghai. In 2005, the company merged with GNI. SG currently employs more than 100 people with about 80% in R&D, including 17 Ph.D. scientists, of which most of them are returnees from the US. GNI went public on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on August 31, 2007.
The mission of SG is to develop novel therapeutic products for diseases prevalent in Asia, especially in the areas of lung fibrosis, liver fibrosis, cancer, and new biomaterials for bone healing. In addition, SG has also built an integrated drug discovery and development platform, including signaling pathway mapping, gene expression profile studies, protein expression and purification, knock-down/knock-out, in vivo animal modeling, antibody generation and purification. These programs have resulted in contract/collaborative research services with pharmaceutical companies worldwide. SG’s research reagent products have been sold to research institutes, hospitals and companies globally. In addition, SG also provides drug registration service and clinical CRO.
The goal of this internship was to experience business development and marketing in a fast growing Chinese Biotech Company in a fast growing market. This includes real-life experience with market research, competitor analysis, in-licensing and patent-law. In other words, to apply the basics of SBB fundamentals course in a real-life business environment. The main tasks included various cases with subjects as market analysis, competitor analysis, customer analysis, licensing for SG.
The most important results include a nearly complete overview of SG’s current competitors in the Chinese biological sourcing market that includes detailed information of each competitor. In addition, some of the clients of SG’s competitors, potential clients for SG, were identified.
Secondly, a database with potential clients for its services was constructed. The database is far from complete, but it can provide a good starting point to get a complete overview of potential clients. In addition, a customer brochure and the company website were completely revised. These improve the quality of information regarding SG’s services; e.g. we try to focus more on the services that are more competitive and beneficial for SG. Instead of describing basic techniques, we tried to focus more on whole customizable biological service platforms.
Last project was the in-licensing case, which required market research and reviewing in-depth scientific background information.
SG is a Chinese company, but still has an international atmosphere with employees from several countries. The company provided me enough freedom to come up with new ideas and suggestions (website, brochure, inlicensing). The tasks and responsibilities were challenging and my suggestions were supported by my supervisor and other senior directors; my work and opinion contributed to the company in a positive way.
Conclusively, I would recommend any student to do the SBB internship in Shanghai and especially within SG. Shanghai is probably the most modern city in China, but still provided enough typical Chinese cultural activities. SG has a professional atmosphere, but everybody is very friendly and helpful. Many after-work activities like parties, dancing, soccer and trips were organized to enhance the team-spirit.”Find more information on SBB internships and more SBB internship experiences on our website.
