Soybeans, transformed by biological enzymes, have become a new favorite in the health supplement market; corn has been turned into fuel ethanol, helping to reduce carbon emissions in the aviation industry; insulin produced by genetically engineered strains has become an effective treatment for diabetes... In China, bio-manufacturing is emerging as a new track for industrial innovation and development.

Forging Ahead in Bio-Manufacturing: A Trillion-Yuan Track Poised for Accelerated Growth

The Proposal of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China for Formulating the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development, reviewed and adopted at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, explicitly states that emerging industries and future industries should be cultivated and expanded. In terms of forward-looking layout of future industries, efforts will be made to drive bio-manufacturing to become a new economic growth driver.

"Bio-manufacturing is a crucial track for winning the future. We must adopt a full-industry-chain perspective, continue to make strides in core technology breakthroughs, industrial ecosystem cultivation and market environment construction, and seize the initiative in this magnificent industrial transformation," said Zhang Linshan, Director and Researcher of the Research Office at the Academy of Macroeconomic Research, National Development and Reform Commission.

Experts believe that during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, driven by multiple factors such as national strategic guidance, technological breakthrough empowerment and market demand pull, China's bio-manufacturing industry, a trillion-yuan track, will embrace a golden period of accelerated development in an all-round way.

Bio-Manufacturing Enters a Phase of Accelerated Development

"The total scale of China's bio-manufacturing industry has approached 1 trillion yuan," said He Yaqiong, Director-General of the Consumer Goods Industry Department, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at the 2025 China Bio-Manufacturing Technology Innovation Forum.

Bio-manufacturing is an emerging production technology that synthesizes or processes products through biological processes. Compared with traditional chemical or physical manufacturing methods, it features green, high-efficiency and renewable attributes. Cao Hui, Secretary of the Party Committee of the School of Life Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, pointed out that traditional manufacturing centers on "cutting, assembling and synthesizing", while bio-manufacturing "utilizes the metabolic networks of living organisms for synthesis and assembly".

"Over the next 3 to 5 years, the bio-manufacturing industry will enter a phase of accelerated development driven by both technology and policies. It will not only reshape the production methods of many traditional industries, but also transform numerous production and lifestyle patterns," Cao Hui stated. According to forecasts, by 2050, global bio-manufacturing is expected to generate an economic value of 30 trillion US dollars, accounting for one-third of the global manufacturing sector.

Developed countries have elevated bio-manufacturing to a national strategic priority. As early as 2012, the United States released the National Bioeconomy Blueprint, identifying genomics and synthetic biology as key development areas. The European Union, on the other hand, places greater emphasis on the green and circular characteristics of bio-manufacturing, taking the bioeconomy as a core pillar of the European Green Deal.

China has incorporated bio-manufacturing into the construction of a modern industrial system, committing to enhancing independent innovation capabilities and support guarantees. "China's bio-manufacturing industry demonstrates distinct features of 'national strategic guidance, large-scale market application and full-chain coordinated advancement'," Zhang Linshan noted. Unlike European and American countries that focus on cutting-edge and high-value-added sub-sectors, China's development path prioritizes alignment with national major strategic needs, showcasing stronger systematicness and scale effects in areas such as green substitution of bulk chemicals and food security guarantee. According to predictions by Essence Capital, by 2030, the scale of China's bio-manufacturing market will grow to 1.8 trillion yuan, accounting for nearly 25% of the global market size, positioning China as one of the world's major bio-manufacturing hubs.

Subverting Traditional Production Models

The construction of stable high-expression cell lines driven by intelligent AI platforms, and the promotion of de novo protein design using artificial intelligence technologies... On August 8, 2025, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology selected and released 16 typical application cases of artificial intelligence in the field of bio-manufacturing, injecting new impetus into the quality improvement and upgrading of the entire bio-manufacturing industry chain.

"With advantages such as green production methods, renewable raw materials, effective reduction of energy and material consumption, and waste emissions, bio-manufacturing is emerging as a strategic driving force for China to enhance industrial competitiveness," said Xu Guanhua, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Taking artemisinin production as an example, the traditional model involves planting Artemisia annua and extracting the compound after 18 months; in contrast, bio-manufacturing technology can achieve the same output in just a few weeks using a controllable 100-cubic-meter industrial fermentation tank, replacing the need for 50,000 mu of traditional agricultural planting.

In his view, this transformation not only involves the innovation of production technologies, but also encompasses the comprehensive upgrading of management models, operational efficiency and market response mechanisms, facilitating the modernization of the industrial chain.

"Bio-manufacturing capability serves as a benchmark for measuring whether a country is a manufacturing power," said Zhao Yan, Chairman of Bloomage Biotechnology. Its core value lies in connecting cutting-edge basic biological research such as chassis strains and gene editing at the upstream end, with the application and transformation of fields related to extending lifespan and improving quality of life at the downstream end, covering all aspects of life health and daily consumption.

Experts indicate that currently, bio-pharmaceuticals, bio-energy, bio-agriculture, bio-based chemicals and materials constitute the core application directions of the bio-manufacturing industry.

For instance, the bio-energy sector exhibits a distinctive trait of "turning waste into treasure". Using living organisms such as microorganisms and algae as "living factories", it has successfully converted agricultural and forestry residues like straw and forestry waste, organic waste such as food scraps, and even low-carbon resources including carbon dioxide from industrial exhaust gas into clean fuels such as ethanol, biodiesel and bio-jet fuel.

In the field of bio-based chemicals and materials, microorganisms modified through synthetic biology technologies can efficiently convert non-grain biomass such as straw and low-carbon raw materials like carbon dioxide into basic chemicals including plastic monomers and polyols. New materials further processed from these bio-based chemicals fundamentally drive the transformation of the traditional materials industry towards a direction of "renewable, biodegradable and high-performance".

The continuous expansion of bio-manufacturing's application boundaries is underpinned by sustained technological innovation. Over the past five years, the cumulative number of patent applications and authorizations by major Chinese bio-manufacturing enterprises has reached 13,680 and 9,447 respectively, accounting for 52.2% and 63.8% of the total historical applications and authorizations, indicating a marked acceleration in technological innovation.

In November 2025, the General Office of the State Council issued the Implementation Opinions on Accelerating Scenario Cultivation and Opening-up to Promote Large-Scale Application of New Scenarios, explicitly proposing to "build an ecological circle for the integrated development of the biotechnology industry".

"China's bio-manufacturing industry demonstrates prominent characteristics of integrated innovation, green sustainability and enabling upgrading. By breaking traditional industrial boundaries, it achieves in-depth cross-integration of biotechnology with multiple fields, realizes green production under mild reaction conditions using renewable biomass as raw materials, and significantly improves the efficiency and added value of traditional industries. These characteristics exert a significant catalytic effect on the high-quality development of the industry," Zhang Linshan commented.

Building the Next Growth Engine

Experts contend that China's bio-manufacturing industry has entered a critical development stage. It is imperative to break through the bottlenecks of collaborative innovation in technology, models and systems, and introduce more systematic and impactful measures to realize the high-quality development of the bio-manufacturing industry, helping it evolve into China's next important growth engine.

• Strengthen top-level design and strategic guidance
  High-quality industrial development hinges on scientific top-level planning and precise strategic guidance. Zhang Linshan believes that it is advisable to formulate a clearer medium and long-term national development plan for bio-manufacturing, specifying priority technological directions and key product catalogs. It is essential to coordinate resources from various science and technology programs and strengthen long-term, stable support for underlying technologies such as synthetic biology, enzyme engineering and biosensing, as well as common platform technologies.

"We should optimize the approval and supervision processes for bio-manufacturing projects and explore the establishment of a moderate error-tolerance mechanism to create a sound institutional environment for the industry," Cao Hui suggested.

• Emphasize independent controllability of underlying technologies and core raw materials
  In the opinion of Tan Tianwei, President of Beijing University of Chemical Technology and Academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, although China's bio-manufacturing industry has formed 70% of the global fermentation capacity, bottlenecks such as the lack of strains with independent intellectual property rights and restrictions on core tool software still constrain industrial competitiveness.

"We should concentrate research forces and scientific resources to achieve independent control over underlying technologies, equipment and raw materials," Xu Guanhua recommended. First, increase investment in synthetic biology underlying technologies such as DNA sequencing and synthesis, genome design and construction, and gene editing to tackle key core technologies and "chokepoint" issues.

Second, vigorously develop underlying raw materials including high-quality DNA synthesis materials, tool enzymes, industrial enzymes and biological reagents, and attach importance to strategies for exploring new types of tool enzymes and industrial enzymes from extreme environments.

Third, intensify R&D efforts on core equipment, such as developing high-throughput and low-cost DNA synthesizers.

Fourth, through iterative optimization of technologies, equipment and platforms, establish large-scale and automated synthetic biology platforms, reduce application-side costs through scale agglomeration effects, and build a sound industrial ecosystem.

• Construct a full-chain collaborative innovation ecosystem
  The breakthrough and transformation of underlying technologies cannot be achieved without the support of a full-chain collaborative innovation ecosystem. Breaking down barriers among basic research, technological development and industrial application is conducive to fully unleashing innovation vitality.

Zhang Linshan emphasized the need to strengthen the construction of pilot-scale amplification and clinical/application verification platforms, which are crucial links in technology maturation.

"Only by adhering to an industry demand-oriented approach and building a full-chain ecosystem from technology to products and then to industry can we truly transform the 'variables' of scientific and technological innovation in the field of bio-manufacturing into 'increments' of industrial innovation," said Wu Fuqing, Secretary-General of the Center for Synthetic and Systems Biology, Tsinghua University.

• Expand diversified investment and market-driven mechanisms
  Experts note that the innovative breakthrough and large-scale implementation of bio-manufacturing are particularly reliant on diversified investment and market mechanism-driven pull.

On the investment side, further increase government R&D investment and actively guide social capital, especially long-term capital, to participate. Explore the establishment of a national bio-manufacturing industry investment fund to form a diversified investment pattern led by the government and participated by the society.

On the market side, activate market demand through policy guidance: on one hand, improve green procurement policies and give priority to purchasing green products such as bio-based and biodegradable items; on the other hand, implement a "carbon footprint" accounting and labeling system to fully reflect the green value of bio-manufactured products through market mechanisms.

In addition, all stakeholders must work together to improve and optimize relevant standards and systems for new product safety evaluation and market access, create a more tolerant policy environment, and enable more innovative achievements and new products to quickly enter the market.

• Consolidate the foundation for interdisciplinary talent cultivation
  Talent is the core driving force for industrial innovation and a key pillar for the high-quality development of the bio-manufacturing industry.

Characterized by the integration of multiple disciplines including biology, engineering and information technology, the rapid development of the bio-manufacturing industry depends on the support of high-level interdisciplinary talents.

Xu Guanhua suggested formulating long-term talent support plans, providing stable long-term research support for young talents, encouraging them to engage in interdisciplinary scientific research, and supporting their participation in international cooperation projects to promote global talent mobility. "The future of China's bio-manufacturing industry will rely on the growth and leadership of a new generation of outstanding young talents."

By Li Song, Journalist of Outlook Weekly