(Yicai Global) Aug. 31 -- The Shanghai municipal government recently unveiled a plan to boost the development of its biomedicine industry. The city will work to become a center of manufacturing, high-end product research and development, and outsourcing and services for the biomedicine industry in Asia-Pacific within five years and establish a modern pharmaceutical circulation system with global resource capabilities.

The scheme said that by 2020, Shanghai's biomedicine industry will retake the lead in China in terms of its innovation capability, and its main business income will surpass USD (CNY30 million), The Paper reported.

Shanghai's four priority fields in medicine development will be biological products, medical equipment, drugs, and modern Chinese medicine, the document said.

To cultivate emerging industries and construct a biomedicine R&D outsourcing and health service demonstration center, Shanghai will pilot a licensing program form pharmaceutical firms. The city's free trade zone will trial new policies to encourage medical equipment production.

Shanghai will carry out feasibility studies on establishing an international pharmaceutical trading center, support the establishment of smart pharmaceutical supply chain enterprises and innovation bases, and improve its pharmaceutical supply chain tracking system to enable end-to-end traceability.

Shanghai reigned in China's pharmaceutical industry in the 1990s, but in recent years, the city has slipped to the middle of the pack based on main business income.