The field of biomedicines has become one of the key sectors in Shanghai and one of the seven frontier industrial clusters in the Lin-gang Special Area, which is located in the city in East China.

At last year's China International Import Expo or CIIE, the exhibition hall for medical equipment and healthcare products was a particular hot spot and at this year's CIIE – which opened on Nov 5 and runs to Nov 10 – the event added a special new section for the bio-pharmaceutical industry.

Global pharma firms have beat a path to the door of the CIIE in their chase for growth.

Novo Nordisk, the Danish biopharmaceutical company, is one of them. This year is the fourth time the group has attended the expo.

Novo Nordisk inked an agreement at last year's CIIE to set up a new operation in Shanghai for research and development, marketing, imports and distribution of finished medicines. Novo Nordisk (Shanghai) Pharma Trading Co Ltd, was set up in the Lin-gang Special Area and received a total investment of 200 million yuan ($30 million).

The unit of the Danish group started business on Jan 1 this year and now employs over 500 staff.

At the 4th CIIE, Novo Nordisk has set up two exhibition areas – at the medical equipment and healthcare products hall and also at the bio-pharmaceutical area, with a total floorspace of 900 square meters. The exhibition area is larger than in previous years and there are more innovative drugs and devices on show there.

The group is this year showcasing its efforts at actively establishing a "changing diabetes" ecosystem, including a diabetes intelligent question-answering robot and a digital chronic disease management model.

The exhibition stand for Denmark's Novo Nordisk at the third CIIE. [Photo/WeChat account: shlgguanweihui]