Over the past 40 years of reform and opening-up, China has continuously promoted its opening-up policy while practicing innovation, which has created opportunities for outbound investment. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), China has accelerated its opening-up process and realized the historical turn from "introducing" to "going out" and from following to leading.
As China's economy enters a new phase of steady growth, overseas markets become more attractive than in the past amid intensifying domestic volatility. In addition, the national government and relevant departments have been issuing a series of favorable policies in the field of international expansion. Besides, the increase in the level of openness towards the outside world has further motivated domestic brands to enter overseas markets. Lastly, the increasing improvement of the digital economy infrastructure including supply chain, mobile social commerce, the Internet and the rise of logistics, payment, SaaS/ERP and other tools have directly reduced the cost and significantly increased the convenience of going abroad.
As we step into this New Year, EqualOcean officially kicks off the project called "Global 100: Go Global and Co-creating the Future", in which our analysts will sit down with frontline industry practitioners and enterprise leaders to hear their opinions about Chinese brands going overseas. We hope to help brands be seen, recognized and valued through our professionalism and credibility.
The following is the second piece in this series, conducted by our analyst Mianmian Wang after her talk with Dr.Du, Vice President of Tsingke Biotechnology (Chinese: 擎科生物).
Tsingke Biotechnology is a gene synthesis platform enterprise, equipped with the whole industry chain, covering the business scope of synthetic genomics products and services, life science raw materials and equipment, and biological manufacturing CXO.
Headquartered in Beijing, the company operates entities and laboratories all over the country, with a total operation area of more than 70,000 m². Its business covers China and extends to the United States, Germany and other countries, providing services and products for more than 170,000 users worldwide. As of September 2022, the company has more than 1,500 employees and 171 patents and core technologies, of which 73 are invention patents. More than 60 patents belong to the field of the application of gene synthesis-relevant equipment；
EqualOcean: Synthetic biology is inseparable from gene synthesis, and some studies believe that the high-throughput gene synthesis method based on oligo pool on chips is one of the future development directions. How do you see the challenges of this technology, and where do you see gene synthesis going in the future?
Tskingke Biotechnology: Microarray-based oligonucleotide synthesis allows for the generation of large-scale and huge amounts of DNA/RNA fragments. Usually, the synthesized primer pool is used for library construction, which is an application direction in primer synthesis. It does not change the length limitation of primer synthesis, and long fragment sequence genes need to be completed by assembly means. In the field of life science, the mainstream application of gene synthesis is nucleic acid vaccines, biomedicine, clinical treatment and many other aspects.
EqualOcean: Tsingke also has extended the business to the field of CXO, relying on the existing whole industry chain of gene synthesis, life sciences equipment and raw materials. What progress has been made or is there any particular plan?
Tsingke Technology: Our business, such as the construction of synthetic raw materials, synthesis equipment and synthesis technology platform, the production of IVD diagnostic raw materials and IND-qualified small nucleic acid drugs provides products and services for different application directions to global customers. Our latest closed round is aimed at R&D and technology platform upgrading, talent team expansion and promotion of the international business operation, thereby creating an intelligent and automated production platform in line with global standards.
EqualOcean: According to public research, the top five gene synthesis companies in 2020 globally are IDT, Twist, Codex, Eurofins and GenScript. The first three are all based in the US while Eurofins is a French company and GenScript is a China-based company. A trend has been observed that domestic enterprises have begun to emerge in the field of gene synthesis. What do you think about the position of domestic enterprises in the global competitive landscape of gene synthesis in the next 3-5 years?
Tskingke Biotechnology: Each company that has a place in the gene-synthesis sector has a unique technical approach and area of focus for their own interests. In the international market of the gene synthesis field, there is more competition and opportunities. Going international or global would require companies to have special caution about the following: 1) equipped with production advantages to help the industry reduce costs; 2) have their own characteristics, whether at the technical level or production platform with peers to open the gap; 3) have a global view to seize new growth opportunities.
EqualOcean: In terms of service network, Tskingke's business scope has been extended to Southeast Asia, the United States, Germany and other regions. Has the company encountered any difficulties or shown any advantages in the process of expanding the international market? What are the plans for further global business expansion in the future?
Tskingke Biotechnology: Globalization is the only way to the development of the industry. It is more conducive to the rapid progress of the industry for domestic enterprises to compete with well-known overseas enterprises. Over the years, Tskingke's technology accumulation in the field of gene synthesis has shown significant advantages in the reduction of production cost and improvement of production efficiency. We can provide customers around the world with nucleic acid synthesis from raw materials, instruments to synthetic products-related services in different application fields .
EqualOcean: At present, many companies in the synthetic biology industry have been listed successfully worldwide, and the financing events in the primary market have increased significantly. Various countries have also introduced various relevant policies, and the 14th Five-Year Biological Economy Development Plan in China clearly proposes to promote the technological innovation of synthetic biology. However, there are still high technical barriers in this industry, and potential risks such as technical problems encountered in the production process and product performance falling short of expectations. What do you think about the future development trend and competition in the synthetic biology circuit?
Tskingke Biotechnology: Both national and local governments are supporting the development of synthetic biology, which also provides a better environment for synthetic biology from the basic layer to the application end. The basic layer is mainly technology platform-oriented: providing DNA and RNA sequencing and synthesis services, software services and biological design and automation platform; The application end is mainly product-oriented: through the construction of highly efficient engineering bacteria and the process scheme obtained by metabolic regulation, engineering amplification synthesis is carried out to produce medicine, food and beverage, chemical products, consumer products and other products. Different enterprises play important roles in their respective fields. Tskingke belongs to the upstream enterprises of synthetic biology.
About EqualOcean
EqualOcean focuses on serving Chinese companies on their road to globalization and helping overseas companies and organizations to grasp China's development opportunities. It believes in the value of globalization, with the mission of connecting China and the world.
For Chinese clients with globalization needs, EqualOcean provides overseas market and industry research, international branding, data products, and overseas resource-building services. For overseas clients who want to grasp China's development opportunities, EqualOcean provides Chinese market and industry research, investment target due diligence, data products and resource-building services.
EqualOcean continues to focus on globalization and invites professionals from various industries to provide valuable information and opinions by contacting yiru@equalocean.com. We also welcome companies that need to expand internationally or want to exchange overseas-related topics to scan the QR code and contact us directly.
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