Approximately a decade ago, a photograph taken in front of two temporary rented offices at the Zhangjiang High-tech Park shows the legendary growth of iRay Technology Co Ltd, rising from a little-known start-up to a leading medical equipment supplier which has successfully broken the market monopoly on flat panel detector production.

This March, the company's IPO application to the science and innovation board of the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) was accepted.

As one of the pilot areas for China's capital market reform, the sci-tech innovation board is duty-bound to steer the country's economy toward high-quality development.

On June 13, the board marked its first anniversary with its value reaching the trillion yuan mark, as high-tech companies have congregated to take a lead in reforming the country's capital market.

By June 5, shares from 106 listed companies on the board had grown by an average of 159% from offering prices, resulting in total financing of more than 1.23 trillion yuan (US$173 billion) and an involvement of 5.27 million investors.

Over the past year, the SSE has phased in its "Board Auditing 2.0" model, designed to deepen the reform of the registration-based IPO system secured with more targeted, efficient, practical and coordinated efforts to confirm the transparency and credibility of listed companies' information disclosure.

Driven by a package of institutional policies, such as flexible stock ownership incentives, registration-based acquisition and reduction of stockholding, the listed enterprises are intended to play a leading role in increasing the board's size and maintaining its cluster effect.

According to Li Gang, deputy director of the General Office of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC), the commission will take several steps to fully implement the registration-based reform centered on information disclosure.

From institutional transformation to highly improved efficiencies, the board has created a fast lane for high-tech companies to grow, especially in the development of those enterprises accommodated at Zhangjiang Science City in Shanghai's Pudong New Area.

Dai Weimin, CEO and chairperson of the board of VeriSilicon Inc., has witnessed the holistic development of his company and Zhangjiang Science City, as well as the evolution of China's chip industry.

Established in 2001, VeriSilicon was one of the first companies to launch in Pudong. It has been dedicated to the design of chips by rolling out one new design each week.

"As long as we're a science-centered company, we need to make time-intensive efforts to cement our core technology," said the CEO.

VeriSilicon is just one of many cases that reflect the leapfrogging development of sci-tech companies in Zhangjiang.Recently, TopAllience, a pharmaceutical manufacturing base whose IPO application was approved by the CSRC in March, has partnered with the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, to begin clinical trials on a recombined anti-coronavirus monoclonal injection approved by the National Medical Products Administration. Clinical trials for the antibody are the first in the world to be conducted among healthy volunteers.

However, the remarkable progress made over the past few years is actually a result of perseverance.

Shanghai Benemae Pharmaceutical Corp, a company listed on the biological and medical section of the sci-tech board since 2020, is known for its development of the beinaglutide injection.

However, it has taken the company 21 years since its establishment to develop and improve the medicine to create the world's first monoclonal antibody of GLP-1 medicine for the treatment of Type 2 diabetes.

Content created in partnership with Science and Technology Daily.

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