SFB Travels to China for the 3rd China-US Joint Forum on Innovation and Regulation of Biomaterials

2015/11/23 中国生物材料学会

Outreach and Building Relationships

SFB Travels to China for the 3^rd China-US Joint Forum on Innovation and Regulation of Biomaterials

By Liisa Kuhn, Art Coury, and Kai Zhang

The idea of holding a series of forums aimed to promote international business collaboration in the biomaterials field was conceived at the last World Biomaterials Congress held in 2012 by Professor Xingdong Zhang, president of the Chinese Society for Biomaterials (CSBM) together with several past presidents of SFB led by Art Coury. The first two forums were held during the 2013 SFB annual meeting in Boston and the 2014 annual SFB meeting in Denver. Their success triggered the 3^rd joint forum recently held on November 19, 2015 at the Chinese Biomaterials Congress in Haikou, Hainan, China. The Forum consisted of presentations given by invited speakers from regulatory agencies, leading Chinese and global companies, clinical research institutes and academia (program available at this website: http://www.csbm.org.cn/annualmeeting2015/). The US SFB sent a delegation of 22 members including 10 members of the US National Academy of Engineering to attend the Forum and other associated events (Jim Anderson, Kristi Anseth, Art Coury, Richard Korsmeyer, Cato Laurencin, Kam Leong, Nicholas Peppas, Len Pinchuck, Buddy Ratner, Joe Salamone, Shrojal Desai, Liisa Kuhn, Steve Lin, Helen Lu, Jon Mosely, Wei-ping Ren, Carl Simon, Timmy Topoleski, Alex Wu, Jian Yang, Guigen Zhang and Kai Zhang). With the goal of creating favorable opportunities for products and companies to enter the market of the partner country, the talks focused on standards, regulation, innovation, technology transfer, market access and customer service. The speaker line-up was impressive and gave attendees the opportunity to speak to knowledgeable authorities from both countries together in the same room (Photos 1-6). The host CSBM made it a memorable and enjoyable experience for each US SFB delegate. The Forum provided truly valuable opportunities to learn about the latest medical device and regenerative medicine product successes in both countries. Most importantly, attendance at the Forum enabled participants to set up future business meetings directly with the appropriate contacts rather than attempting to navigate a corporate structure on their own. In addition to the Forum speakers, a group of 9 US national academy members were present and had participated in the China-US Forum on Grand Challenges for Biomaterials in the 21^st Century in Chengdu, Sichuan, China in advance of the meeting (photos 7,8). The forum invited biomaterials experts from both China and US, the largest developing and developed entities, to gather ideas to identify and discuss opportunities and challenges for biomaterials in the new century. The Joint Forum was on the first day of the 2015 Chinese Biomaterials Congress (Photos 9). There were close to 1500 attendees for the Chinese Biomaterials Congress which is likely the highest number of attendees for a national-level biomaterials' meeting. Many of the SFB delegates gave scientific presentations enabling the CSBM to hold their first English speaking sessions at the annual meeting.

SFB President Elect Liisa Kuhn and the newly elected CSBM President Yingjun Wang discussed their shared determination to continue the momentum of these Joint Forums. A planning meeting for the 4^th Joint Forum will be held at the World Biomaterials Congress in Montreal, and the tentative site will be in Guangzhou, China.

Photo 1. A group photo of the Joint Forum between CSBM and SFB (November 19, 2015 Haikou, China).

Photo 2. China-US Joint Forum Co-Chairs Xingdong Zhang and Art Coury

Photo 3 Approximately 400 people attended the Joint Forum.

Photo 4 SFB President Elect Liisa Kuhn spoke about the role of ASTM standards in product commercialization and Past President James Anderson discussed the role of ISO standards. SFB members have long played a critical role in developing world-wide biomaterials standards.

Photo 5 Organizing Committee Director Kai Zhang.

Photo 6 A panel discussion with the speakers was held to close the Forum.

Photo 7 A group photo for the China-US Forum on Grand Challenges for Biomaterials in the 21^st Century held prior to the Joint Forum (November 17, 2015 Chengdu, China).

Photo 8 Participants in the Grand Challenges event held in Chengdu prior to the Joint Forum in Haikou. (from left to right: Nicholas Peppas, Leonard Pinchuck, Art Coury and Cato Laurencin).