STORY MABEL SIEH PHOTOGRAPHY GARETH GAY

The small but growing biotechnology industry in Hong Kong boasts companies offering groundbreaking products and services.

“TO INVEST A LARGE AMOUNT OF MONEY ON SOMETHING THAT WON’T GIVE YOU ANY GAIN IN FIVE YEARS IS NOT EVERYONE’S CUP OF TEA.

BUT I’D SAY THE ONES WHO INVESTED IN US ARE TRULY

VISIONARY”– Eric Chen, Vitargent (International) Biotechnology

Although biotechnology is a relatively new sector in Hong Kong, researchers and companies in this field can be proud of some groundbreaking achievements. One such company is Novoheart, which recently created the world’s first “cloned heart”. About the size of an adult thumb, the heart was made using ‘pluripotent’ stem cells – cells which have the ability to differentiate into other types of cells and tissue in the body.

“If I take 5ml of blood from you today, after half a year, we can show you a personalised mini-heart of yours, beating right in front of you,” says Novoheart founder Professor Ronald Li, who is also the director of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Consortium at the University of Hong Kong’s Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine.

The heart can be developed

WELCOME TO THE FUTURE

for a wide range of applications. For example, it could be used as a “bio-artificial bandage” to repair a damaged human heart, and for in-vitro testing of new drugs conducted outside of the human body.

“Our first step is to use the technology for drug discovery and development,” Li says. “It will save a lot of time and money compared to the traditional method – not to mention [avoiding] the risk of many side effects, such as cardiovascular toxicity in drug testing in humans.

“Ultimately, you can imagine in future we can use the technology to develop transplantable organs,” he adds.

Novoheart is the result of international collaborative stem cell research by Li and co-founders Michelle Khine, associate professor in biomedical engineering at the University of California, Irvine, and

Kevin Costa, associate professor of cardiology and director of the Cardiovascular Cell and Tissue Engineering Laboratory at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Cardiovascular Research Centre in New York.

The company is now working with some strategic partners on the collaboration of drug discovery.

Eric Chen, founder of Vitargent (International) Biotechnology, with one of the company’s transgenic fish.

Co-founders of Novoheart (from left) Kevin Costa, Ronald Li and Michelle Khine. Li holds stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes, or heart muscle cells, in cell culture dishes.

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“What we’re doing is not just some R&D research in an ivory tower,” Li says. “Novoheart is something that can benefit the community and people.”

Novoheart is located at the Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks (HKSTP), home to over 50 of the 250 to 300

and a quick return,” he says. “To invest a large amount of money on something that won’t give you any gain in five years is not everyone’s cup of tea. But I’d say the ones who invested in us are truly visionary.”

Chen sees a particularly large potential market in the area of food safety. “The food scares in the past – and the recent one regarding the use of gutter oil in Taiwan and Hong Kong – told us that the current standards and procedures of food testing aren’t enough to detect all kinds of toxic substances in our food and environment,” he says. “But with our technology, we can test up to 70 per cent of those substances.”

GOVERNMENT SUPPORT Vitargent received HK$2 million in initial funding from the government’s Innovation and Technology Fund (ITF) and over HK$10 million from HKSTP and angel investors.

Being located at HKSTP has also given the company “great brand recognition in the market,” says Chen, adding that it “provides us with its state-of-the-art advanced technical facilities which saves us a lot of money. Also, we get practical support in terms of marketing, management and strategic advice, and in finding potential business partners.”

HKSTP helps biotech start-up companies such as Vitargent through its four-year Incu-Bio incubation programme. “We are dedicated to steering the development of the local biomedical industry by building a vibrant ecosystem for our incubatees and partner companies, connecting them with the appropriate business stakeholders to ensure efficient commercialisation of their innovations,” says Allen Ma, CEO of HKSTP.

But while appreciating the support his company receives from HKSTP, Chen feels the government

can do more to support home-grown biotechnology. “The government has given us lots of money for our research, but not enough support to commercialise our products,” Chen says.

“I’ve been trying to sell our services and products to some government departments for five years now, but have been turned down constantly. Unlike in the US and Singapore, our government is not adventurous enough to buy in

“WE NOW NEED TO FOCUS ON THE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY ASPECT OF

THE INDUSTRY AND STRENGTHEN COLLABORATIONS AMONG

DIFFERENT SECTORS”– Dr Pang, Innovation and Technology Commission

“I BELIEVE IN THE NEXT 30 YEARS, THE APPLICATIONS DERIVED FROM GENOMIC RESEARCH WILL BE ENORMOUS”

– Alex Wong, BGI Health (HK)

biotechnology companies in Hong Kong, which are mostly involved the healthcare industry. A relatively new tenant, Novoheart has been there just since August.

WORLD FIRSTS Another tenant at HKSTP that has achieved a world first is Vitargent

(International) Biotechnology, which began as a biotech start-up in 2010.

“Our team was the first in the world to invent the ‘transgenic fish’ using the Nobel-prize winning fluorescent gene,” says founder and director Eric Chen Zixiang, who was born in Guangzhou and moved to Hong Kong in 2006. Transgenic organisms have had genes from other species inserted in their genome. In 2008, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to three US-based scientists for their discovery and development of a green fluorescent protein.

“The fish, when in contact with estrogenic endocrine disruptors (EED), will light up in green within 24 hours,” explains Chen.

EEDs are harmful substances that are believed to lead to cancerous tumours, and reproductive and other health problems. Chen says Vitargent’s testing services can be used in industries, such as in the food, pharmaceutical and cosmetic products sectors, as well as in aquatic environments.

Vitargent has a team of about 10 people, including five core management members, a small R&D team, and a panel of international scientific advisers. In recent years, it has focused on commercialising and franchising its products and services.

Chen says the company has secured lucrative contracts with some large international firms in the food and cosmetics industries. “I can’t tell you names yet. I can only say these companies are all leaders in their own industries,” he says.

But getting Vitargent to where it is today was by no means easy. After making about 100 pitches, Chen – who has a degree in engineering in marketing, as well as a master’s in economics – secured three investors for the company. “Being a financial city, people want fast money

Alex Wong, executive director of BGI Health (HK), holding a semiconductor chip for a genome sequencing machine

Dr Cecilia Pang, biotechnology director at the Innovation and Technology Commission

new services. That’s why we have to go overseas to find our clients instead,” he adds.

Similarly, Novoheart’s Li believes more should be done to foster further growth in the biotechnology industry, which, as he points out, has good foundations here. In Hong Kong, “some of our universities are engaged in top-notch research in Asia,” he says.

“We have a constant flow of talent and also a competitive edge

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being close to mainland China … What we need is the right kind of push – not just from academic professors but also from the government, which is doing a fantastic job now in connecting the dots.”

He adds: “Biotechnology is a huge industry – we all know this ... Whether you like it or not, we should ask ourselves: Do we want it? Do we want to do nothing and be more behind, or do we want to do something about it?”

Dr Cecilia Pang Wai-bing, biotechnology director of the government’s Innovation and Technology Commission, recognises the importance of support for both the business and research aspects of the industry.

“We’re going through a learning curve. We’ve learnt a lot in the past 20 years, where the primary focus was on building up the capability in the scientific community through funding university research,” she says. “Now we’re looking at further supporting the business side, not just the research.”

Since its inception in 1999 and as of September this year, the government’s Innovation and Technology Fund has approved HK$680 million for 330 biotechnology-related projects, out of a total of more than 4,100 project submissions. The government has also established a research and development (R&D) cash rebate scheme in 2010. When first launched, it provided for a 10 per cent cash rebate. This was increased to 30 per cent in 2012.

“The scheme offers companies a cash rebate of 30 per cent of their expenditure in applied R&D projects,” explains Pang. “It helps to reinforce the research culture among private companies and encourage them to establish strong partnership with local public research institutions.”

THE GENETIC ERA Genome research and its applications have seen significant, fast-paced growth, making international headlines.

“We live in a genetic era,” says Alex Wong, executive director of BGI Health (HK), a subsidiary of BGI (previously known as the Beijing Genomics Institute). “I believe in the next 30 years, the applications derived from genomic research will be enormous in all possible areas – from the industrial to commercial field, and down to a personal level.”

Shenzhen-headquartered BGI, reputedly the world’s largest genome mapping company, was originally established in 1999 and now has laboratories in the Americas and Europe, as well as Asia Pacific. Its achievements

include sequencing 1 per cent of the human genome for the Human Genome Project (which began in 1990 and was completed in 2003), sequencing the SARS virus and a range of plant and animal genomes.

BGI’s Hong Kong operations were established in July 2010 at Tai Po Industrial Estate and now have about 200 staff. Services include providing genetic testing for reproductive health, inherited diseases and cancer-related diseases.

“On average, we can provide DNA sequencing for up to 60 persons on a daily basis,” Wong says. BGI offers the non-invasive fetal trisomy (NIFT), a test which estimates the risk of three major fetal chromosomal aneuploidies, or abnormal number of chromosomes, during the first trimester of a pregnancy. Such abnormalities can result in mental disabilities, physical deformities or even death.

“We are the world’s first state-approved IVD [in vitro diagnostics] NIFT for pregnant women, and our technology provides a stronger risk indication than traditional screening procedures,” says Wong.

“With our technology, we can also tackle some important and global issues such as food and energy crises. For example, we can use the technology of molecular cloning to maximise food output to feed the world,” he adds.

But Wong believes Hong Kong has a lot of catching up to do. “The development of the biotechnology industry is very slow in Hong Kong compared to that in mainland China, Singapore and Taiwan. The government needs to give more support for long-term research and for developing research into real-life products or services,” he says.

ETHICAL DIMENSIONSAdvances in sciences such as biotechnology come with significant moral and ethical issues. One high-

profile debate involves so-called ‘designer’ babies.

“Is it ethical to create designer babies and eliminate undesirable ones?” asks Professor Fok Tai-fai, pro-vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK). Fok refers to how, in some cultures, boys are favoured over girls, and would-be parents have already chosen abortion where they have been able to find out gender before birth.

“When we manipulate genes to cure a disease, it is less controversial. But if we can use the technology to create ‘better’ – smarter, prettier, or taller – babies, that is another issue,” Fok says. “Such technology will cost a huge amount of money, which means only the rich can have access to it. Can you imagine the kind of society we are creating?”

Fok, who was formerly dean of CUHK’s Faculty of Medicine and chairman of the Department of Paediatrics, is the interim director of the recently established CUHK Centre for Bioethics. When the centre is formally launched in January 2015, a curriculum in ethics will be offered to all medical students at the university.

The centre also hopes to promote awareness of biomedical ethics within the Hong Kong community – not only among medical, clinical and social workers, but also policymakers, professionals, families and religious counsellors – anyone who could be affected by changing medical and health practices in the 21st century.

“Without ethics, the world is going to be quite scary,” says Fok. “That’s why we need to train our students to maintain a high, professional moral standard, so they can make the right choice in the best interest of their patients. We also need to educate the public about what is ethical or not.”

“WITHOUT ETHICS, THE WORLD IS GOING TO BE QUITE SCARY.

THAT’S WHY WE NEED TO TRAIN OUR

STUDENTS”– Professor Fok Tai-fai, Chinese University of Hong Kong

She adds that the government will continue to support the biotechnology industry, which she considers a perfect fit for Hong Kong’s knowledge-based economy and strong academic research foundations.

“We now need to focus on the multi-disciplinary aspect of the industry and strengthen collaborations among different sectors. We should also promote the interest of science among students from a young age,” says Pang.

OPPOSITE Allen Ma, CEO of Hong Kong Science and Technology Park BELOW Professor Fok Tai-fai, pro-vice-chancellor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong and interim director of the newly established CUHK Centre for Bioethics

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