A novel drug production base, with an annual capacity of 250 million tablets and 550 million capsules has been put into operation, becoming the first high-end biomanufacturing project in Shanghai's Zhangjiang innovative drug industry base, Chinese biopharmaceutical company HutchMed announced on Friday.

Taking up an area of 43 acres, the newly completed project in Shanghai's Zhangjiang Innovation Drug Industry Base is facilitating HutchMed's pursuit of building a first-class global manufacturing center and clinical sample preparation center in China. The company plans to supply local innovative products globally.

"Innovation is key to the biomedical industry development. More support will be granted to innovative pharmaceutical companies to strengthen their competitiveness and fulfill the city's goal of expanding its biomedical industry scale to trillion yuan in the years to come," said Li Jia, an official from the Shanghai Commission of Economy and Informatization.

"As a local innovative pharmaceutical company based in Shanghai's Pudong New Area for 21 years, HutchMed has benefited from the first-class business environment created by the governments at all levels in Shanghai," said Su Weiguo, chief executive officer and chief scientific officer of HutchMed.

Being one of the city's major strategic emerging industrial projects, construction of the HutchMed's innovative drug production base started three years ago.