German pharma giant expands in China with new innovation hub

German pharmaceutical and technology company Merck on Monday opened its Greater Bay Area Innovation and Collaboration Center in south China's Shenzhen City, stepping up investment in the country's innovation drive.

Shenzhen, dubbed "Silicon Valley of China," is home to leading tech companies like Huawei, Tencent, and DJI.

Merck has operated in the Chinese market for more than 90 years, building a long-standing presence that underpins its latest expansion.

Merck China President Rogier Jansses said the new project reflects confidence in China's innovation potential and academic strength.

"Breakthroughs is basically what we're all after and breakthroughs and innovation is typically not a solo act. This is really where we need to bring teams together. And I think that's also the main idea behind this innovation and collaboration effort of Merck," he said

"We have the government who provides us policy. We have also the [Chinese] Academy of Science (CAS) and academia in general, together which is bringing us ideas and innovation. And we have ourselves as a company who brings scale potentially. All together I think this is like the cocktail which is going to bring a new innovation forward. It is, by the way, perfectly aligned with the 15th Five-Year Plan objectives. In that regard, we are going in the right direction," he said.

Jansses highlighted China's academic pipeline as a decisive factor behind Merck's latest investment push.

"Maybe one other comforting factor is the fact that China is producing a lot of scientists and producing a lot of scientists for the future as well. So we're very focused also in this project here on academia. And academia is producing many STEM students. In the last statistics I have seen, China produces 3.5 million STEM graduates every year. And that's way beyond any other country out here. So really the science of today is happening here in China, also increasingly in the south of China here. And that's why we are in Shenzhen," he said.  

German pharma giant expands in China with new innovation hub

The eco-environmental quality of southwest China's Xizang Autonomous Region remained stable in 2025, with strong performance in air and water quality, according to an official report released on Tuesday.

In 2025, the ambient air quality across all seven prefecture-level cities in Xizang met the level-II national standard, with the proportion of days with good or excellent air quality reaching 99.8 percent, according to the annual report issued by the regional department of ecology and environment.

The water quality of major rivers and lakes remained generally good, with multiple lakes such as Namtso meeting the level-II national standard.

As an important ecological barrier in China, Xizang currently has over 15 million hectares of forest, 80 million hectares of grassland, and 8.17 million hectares of wetlands -- the largest wetland area in the country.

The region is also home to 169 species of nationally protected wild plants, 1,072 species of terrestrial wild vertebrates, and 246 species of nationally protected wild animals.

China's Xizang maintains stable ecological environment in 2025: report