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Pharmaceutical Gateway China-Finland/Europe (PGCF)
Pharmaceutical Gateway China-Finland/Europe is a cooperative HealthBio Cluster spearhead project of the University of Eastern Finland and Kuopio Innovation Ltd. Its overall aim is to increase pharmaceutical cooperation between Finland and China. Finnish and Chinese universities, pharmaceutical companies and development organizations are participating in this programme.
Cooperation brings additional value both Finnish and Chinese parties
The initial start-up project laid the groundwork, created an extensive network of contacts and developed operations models. The main objectives of the 2008-2010 continuation project are:
- to increase the Finnish-Chinese research cooperation and the mutual exchange of services
- to promote Finnish enterprises business activities in China by building a cooperation platform for Finnish and Chinese organizations creating the preconditions for carrying out actual projects. This cooperation platform will produce so-called Spin off projects in which both European and Chinese parties will participate. The operating principle of the programme is shown in the figure below.
Fig.1 Pharmaceutical Gateway China-Finland/Europe programme.
The PGCF team first identifies and then evaluates suitable cooperation partners from China and Europe and organizes joint seminars and partnering events (in China and Finland). The team also helps the spin off projects, mainly in project planning but also in seeking finance and in helping to identify the best operational model for their project. After the start-up period, it is anticipated that the spin off projects will be sufficiently robust that they can thrive on their own.
Expert networks in Finland and China
The University of Eastern Finland acts as the administrator of the PGCF project and as the co-ordinator of the academic part. The following units of the university participate in the project: Drug Research and Development Centre, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Department of Pharmaceutics and Department of Business and Management. Research Specialist Tuomo Laitinen serves as the responsible leader of the project.
Kuopio Innovation Ltd. is responsible for the coordination of the enterprise share in the programme in Finland. Marja Jaurakkajärvi has been appointed as the Project Manager of the programme.
In China, Professor William Jia acts as the leader of the project. He can access contacts in local universities, pharmaceutical companies and administrative authorities and he is assisted in his work by Ms. Kathy Ryu who is the project assistant/manager. The office of PGCF is located in the FinChi Innovation Centre in the Zhangjiang Hi-Tech Park. The Shanghai University of Traditional Chinese Medicine and the Shanghai Innovative Research Center of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SIRC) function as academic cooperation partners.
Support from the pharmaceutical industry
There are 10 domestic companies in the PGCF programme which represent the entire spectrum of Finnish pharmaceutical industry – in addition to drug development and service companies, there are also manufacturing and marketing companies:
The Chinese companies/organizations:
New Chinese and Finnish company partners will be chosen as the programme proceeds.
Further information:
Marja Jaurakkajärvi, M.Sc. (Pharm.)
Project Manager
GSM +358 45 139 3992
marja.jaurakkajarvi (at) kuopioinnovation.fi
   
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