People suffering from various infectious and genetic diseases may benefit from plans to support biotech medicine.

In the next five years, the State will focus on developing new low-cost biotech medicines and vaccines, among other biotechnology initiatives, said Qi Chengyuan, director of the High and New Technology Department under the National Development and Reform Committee (NDRC).

The central government will also concentrate on schemes to screen people for genes that might cause diseases.

China's biotech investment is said to be the largest in a developing country.

Qi made his remarks on Friday at the opening of the three-day Fourth China Tianjin Economic Development Area (TEDA) Bioforum. Investment will look at such things as genetically modified seeds, biotechnology-based manufacturing, bio-energy and biotech-based environmental protection, said Qi. All will be part of the 11th Five-Year Programme (2006-10).

Drafts of the plan, which has been worked on by the NDRC, the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the Ministry of Health and other government departments, will be finished early next year, according to MOST sources.

During the current 10th Five-Year Plan (2001-05), the central government quadrupled its investment in life sciences and biotech sectors to 13 billion yuan (US$1.6 billion), from the previous five-year period. That's according to statistics from the National Biotech Development Centre.

The huge investment and the vast number of talented people in China means the nation is among the world's top countries in biotechnological terms. It is doing a lot of work in areas such as proteomics (the branch of molecular biology concerned with the behaviour and interaction of proteins within cells), stem cell research, genetically modified seeds and gene therapy.

Zhang Jing'an, secretary general of the Ministry of Science and Technology, said total investment in the field could reach 50 billion yuan (US$6.2 billion) in the 11th Five-Year Programme period.

(China Daily November 5, 2005)