On October 12, 2021, the opening ceremony of the 2021 Chinese Biomaterials Congress was held in Shanghai International Conference Center. The conference, themed by “Biomaterials: Innovation and Development, Service for Health”, was attended by more than one thousand participants including experts, scholars, researchers, doctors and entrepreneurs engaged in the research and development, production, testing, supervision and clinical of biomaterials and medical devices from well-known research institutes, medical institutions, enterprises and regulatory authorities.

Since 2013, the Chinese Biomaterials Congress has been held every two years, aiming to build a platform, create opportunities and promote cooperation for experts, scholars, regulators and entrepreneurs engaged in biomaterials and medical device research in China. The Chinese Biomaterials Congress held this year was a 4-day event with 6 plenary lectures, 101 special presentations, 11 forums and special sessions such as poster exchanges, bringing a feast of science and technology regarding the development of the whole chain of biomaterials and medical devices.

Hong Jiao, director of the National Medical Products Administration, pointed out in the speech that in recent years, the National Medical Products Administration has continued to deepen the reform to support and encourage the scientific and technological innovation and application of biomaterials, help the industry to tackle key core technologies, and fully serve to promote the implementation of the Health China Strategy. 

Yingjun Wang, president of the Chinese Society for Biomaterials and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the Chinese Biomaterials Congress focuses on the frontier direction, research hotspots and latest progress of biomaterials, and it has developed into the highest-level and largest scientific and technological event in China’s biomaterials industry, and also a large international biomaterials congress second to the World Biomaterials Congress.

Xingdong Zhang, honorary chairman of the Chinese Society for Biomaterials and academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that the biomaterials industry today is converging with emerging industries such as big data, artificial intelligence and 5G, and it has become one of the pillars of national economic development. The Chinese Biomaterials Society is one of the largest organizations among the biomaterials societies in the world today, and it will provide a multidisciplinary crossover dialog and communication platform to promote the development of biomaterials science, education, clinical applications and industry in China, and to promote international biomaterials science and technology exchange and cooperation.

Dr. Qifeng Yu, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Shanghai NewMed Medical Co., Ltd. attended the congress and gave a keynote speech entitled “Current Situation of Interventional Mitral Valve Replacement and Repair Technology” in the session of the new structure of implant interventional medical devices, explaining the market prospect and latest research progress of medical devices in the field of interventional mitral valve at home and abroad. 

Dr. Qifeng Yu said that innovation drives development, and many innovative enterprises in China are carrying forward research and development in the field of mitral valve intervention with great technological breakthroughs, and that the optimization of properties of devices and breakthroughs in innovative biomaterials will be the future development direction of the industry. The continuous iteration of new interventional medical devices will drive the expansion of indications, and the mitral valve intervention will create another new era in the future following TAVR (Transcatheter Aortic Valve Replacement).

China was a late starter in the development and production of biomaterials, but in recent years it has seen rapid development in science, technology and industry. In the context of population aging and normalized epidemic prevention and control today, biomaterials provide new ideas and means for breakthrough development in life, medicine and other fields, and they will certainly play an increasingly important role in the national strategy of “Health China”.