In the first half of this year, Jiading District's strategic emerging industries accounted for 41.4% of total industrial output value above a designated size, with the three leading sectors achieving 98.68 billion yuan in output, up 4.5%. The biomedical sector surged 25.4%, ranking first in the city for growth. Inside the laboratory of Ruijie Rongchuang, a company based in Nanxiang Life Valley, staff are conducting sample tests on a self-developed gel dressing product. Recently, this product secured Shanghai's first Class II medical device registration certificate for silk fibroin materials.

In recent years, Ruijie Rongchuang has strategically positioned itself in a cutting-edge field. Silk fibroin, extracted from silkworm silk, is a natural protein rich in 18 amino acids homologous to those in the human body. It offers excellent biocompatibility, controlled degradability, and mechanical strength, and is included in the national "14th Five-Year Plan" for biomedical industry as a key regenerative biomaterial. "Once the product hits the market, it will reduce patient medical expenses and shorten wound healing time," said Xing Rong, founder of Ruijie Rongchuang. The company's proprietary "enzymatic + physical double crosslinking" technology produces silk fibroin hard materials with over 30% higher strength than traditional polylactic acid absorbable bone implants, with controlled degradation and no immune rejection. Leveraging this core technology, the company has built three platforms: hard materials, hydrogels, and microspheres, making it one of the few suppliers offering complete solutions in the industry.

Currently, the company's raw material and medical aesthetics (cosmetic grade) production lines have surpassed 100 million yuan in annual output. With Shanghai's first silk fibroin Class II medical device registration certificate secured, Ruijie Rongchuang's commercialization is accelerating. "All production line equipment is fully installed, with an annual capacity of over 10,000 units," Xing Rong revealed. Once the orthopedic Class III product obtains its registration certificate and production license, the company's annual production capacity is expected to reach 500 million to 1 billion yuan. This innovative enterprise is smoothly transitioning from the "technology validation phase" to the "scale-up phase."

Bridging the "0.8 to 3" Death Valley of Transformation
From R&D to pilot testing to mass production, the complete industrialization chain is a series of challenges for startups. In 2024, Xing Rong brought a silk fibroin patent transformed from Zhongshan Hospital affiliated with Fudan University to Nanxiang to begin industrialization. Initially, the team operated from a lab under 120 square meters, which was insufficient for scaling from R&D to pilot production. "Nanxiang has a spirit of scientific innovation, and the staff are professional. They understand our needs and go all out to support us," Xing Rong said. For example, during the construction of the GMP factory, the park's operations team proactively resolved issues like capacity expansion, equipment siting, and site coordination. They also provided resource connections, sales channel development, and investment introductions. In March, Ruijie Rongchuang completed a Pre-A round led by Furong Investment with participation from Sanxin Medical, with funds directed to silk fibroin innovative medical device R&D, core material process iteration, and full pipeline product registration.

"In the progress bar of technological innovation, '0.8 to 3' is the core phase of transforming scientific achievements into industrial products," said Wang Rui, Deputy General Manager of Nanxiang Life Valley. He explained that 0.8 represents basic lab work completed, ready for enterprise formation, while 3 signifies early-stage R&D done, recognized by capital and market. "This is the interval with the highest failure rate, the hardest funding to secure, and where traditional incubators struggle to provide deep support," Wang said. To address this, Nanxiang Life Valley has built an incubation system combining funding and services. It leverages a special fund for scientific achievement transformation to help researchers take their first steps toward industrialization, provides a professional team for full-cycle support to help companies build core technology barriers and connect with clinical resources and industry leaders, and offers shared technology platforms to sharply reduce startup R&D costs.

This approach is proving effective. As of the end of June 2026, Life Valley has attracted over 400 biomedical companies, focusing on precision medicine, new biomaterials, medical devices, and digital health. It has incubated over 30 high-tech and specialized "little giant" enterprises, with effective intellectual property exceeding 200 items.

From "Seed" to "Breakthrough Point"
"We aim to keep early-stage sci-tech projects here and help them grow big," Wang Rui stated. The landing of a breakthrough company attracts raw material suppliers, contract manufacturers, and distributors to the park, forming an industry cluster led by the flagship firm. Building this ecosystem is an iterative, continuous process of empowerment. For Jiading, the "sowing" began long ago. In recent years, Jiading has focused on a "one axis, one town, two valleys, two zones" overall layout to create a high-end medical device cluster. The goal is to add over 100 Class III medical device registrations and 30 overseas product approvals by 2027, forming a "dual echelon" of leading firms and unicorns. The district now hosts over 2,000 related companies, including 55 above-designated-size manufacturers and seven listed ones, with rising industry scale and capability.

A key feature of Nanxiang Life Valley is the Shanghai (Nanxiang) International Precision Medicine Innovation Center, which opened in February. It is among Shanghai's first batch of "industrial vertical development and smart manufacturing space" certified projects. Just six months after opening, its occupancy rate exceeds 70%. "We want to turn the Innovation Center into a complete micro-ecosystem where everything from R&D to services to production can be done internally," Wang Rui said. When seeds of innovation meet professional soil, with sunlight of policy and rain of capital precisely delivered, a "rainforest" naturally grows.

Reporter: Xu Chenyi
Camera: Zhang Xiaodong
Editor: Yuan Yue