On November 16, 2023, witnessed by Zhang Shuyang, the President of PUMCH, and Zhou Bing, the Deputy Director of the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica), a strategic cooperation agreement was signed between PUMCH represented by Vice President Du Bin, and the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica represented by Deputy Director Zhao Qiang. According to the agreement, the two sides will engage in comprehensive cooperation in disciplines development, scientific innovation, drug research and development, among other areas. They will also establish a Joint Laboratory for Rare Disease Drug Development to collaborate on early discovery, optimization, and target screening of rare disease drugs.

President Zhang Shuyang, on behalf of PUMCH, extended a warm welcome and heartfelt gratitude to the delegation from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica. She emphasized that the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement on the basis of past sound collaboration holds great historical and practical significance for advancing medical development and drug research. The fruitful collaboration, rooted in the positive interplay between medical research and clinical practices, will ultimately benefit patients not only in China but also worldwide. Both parties are committed to building an open, inclusive, and innovative cooperation platform. The platform will enable close collaboration between scientists and clinical specialists, focus on developing cutting-edge technologies, improving drug efficacy and accelerating new drug development, among other key tasks, and explore innovative models that deeply integrate scientific research and clinical practice.

As Deputy Director Zhao Qiang pointed out, PUMCH is a long-standing medical institution with a wide range of disciplines, characterized by exceptional technical prowess, advantageous specialties and strong overall strength, and the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica is the oldest comprehensive innovative drug research institution in China, boasting disciplinary and talent advantages. This paves the way for their complementary and synergistic cooperation, which he hoped would advance basic research and clinical translation and facilitate the application of more and better-quality research outcomes in biomedicine.

During the signing ceremony, President Zhang Shuyang, Vice President Du Bin, Deputy Director Zhao Qiang, and Deputy Director Zhou Bing jointly inaugurated the Joint Laboratory for Rare Disease Drug Development. The laboratory will be based at the National Infrastructures for Translational Medicine (Peking Union), establishing an effective green passage for scientists to start working on and follow through clinical issues earlier.

▲PUMCH President Zhang Shuyang granted a certificate of appointment to Mr. Xu Huaqiang, a research fellow from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica

▲On October 30, Research Fellow Xu Huaqiang delivered a well-received academic presentation titled “GPCR Structure-based Pharmacology and Drug Design Based on the Fundamental Principles”

PUMCH and the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica have long had academic collaboration and exchanges. In recent years, both parties have published a number of original research findings on drug research in prestigious international journals such as “Science”, “Nature Communications”, “Science Bulletin”, and “Nature Structural & Molecular Biology”. At the end of October, Research Fellow Xu Huaqiang from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica delivered a well-received academic presentation titled “GPCR Structure-based Pharmacology and Drug Design Based on the Fundamental Principles”. After that, President Zhang Shuyang presented him with a certificate of appointment as the Honorary Director of the Drug Research and Evaluation Platform under the National Infrastructures for Translational Medicine. 

▲Left: the delegation visited the hospital history museum; right: the delegation attended the MDT consultation for rare diseases

The delegation also visited the hospital history museum and attended the MDT consultation for rare diseases. The two sides also had animated academic discussions on the way forward for cooperation in the R&D of drugs for rare diseases.

▲The signing ceremony

▲Academic exchanges

Written by Chen Xiao

Photographed by Sun Liang

Edited by Xiao Xiong

Translated by Liu Haiyan

Reviewed by Wang Yao