​The Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone, also known as Boao Hope City, one of the key industrial parks in China’s Hainan Province, has made remarkable achievements in the medical industry in recent years.

In 2021, specially licenced medicines were used 9,963 times in Hope City, a year-on-year increase of 483.31%. The medical park has built a connection with nearly 80 pharmaceutical and device companies in 18 countries and regions around the world, and formed in-depth cooperative relationships with the top 30 internationally ranked pharmaceutical companies, bringing around 260 international innovative medical devices to Hainan.

The opening-up and development of Lecheng have been made possible by Hainan’s advanced policies and deep cooperation with international corporations, according to Jia Ning, director of Boao Lecheng International Medical Tourism Pilot Zone Administration. At present, Lecheng has developed a medication and device display platform, a medical resource platform, a real-world data (RWD) research platform (data relating to patient health statuses or the delivery of health care is routinely collected from a variety of sources), a global pharmacy information query platform, and a drug and device traceability platform. In the future, it will create three major platforms: a medical-industrial transformation platform, an insurance service platform, and an investment and financing platform.

Lecheng actively carries out real-world evidence collection (collection of clinical evidence regarding the usage and potential benefits or risks of a medical product derived from analysis of RWD) and regulatory decision-making research exploration. The RWD pilot program in Lecheng has issued several real-world research-related guidelines, set up a pharmaceutical and medical device regulatory scientific research base, and has key laboratories with 24 products in clinical trials and 9 products that have already been approved for sale on the market.

The real-world data application pilot work of Lecheng has provided a new solution for the reform of the national pharmaceutical medical device review and approval system, and has also allowed international medical devices to enter the Chinese market on an accelerated timetable via Lecheng.