China has its own Kendall Square — and it's booming

Shanghai’s “Pharma Valley” — a 10-square-kilometer life sciences hub — houses more than 500 biotech companies, and that figure keeps growing. Global biopharma companies like Roche and Novartis flank this hotbed for R&D, which is home to perhaps three-quarters of the country’s life sciences innovation.

The region isn’t as mature as Cambridge — but what it lacks in terms of proximal hospitals and academic institutions, it makes up for in unprecedented expansion.

“In general, things move at a faster pace in China, and everything adapts to the pace of change of society,” one Pharma Valley exec told STAT.