On the morning of August 16, the inauguration and technology cooperation signing ceremony for the Joint R&D Center for Artificial Intelligence and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) Biosynthesis was successfully held at Building 16 of Yuelu Mountain Laboratory.
The center was jointly established by Hunan Yineng Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. (Yineng Pharma), Dongting Laboratory, Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hunan Agricultural University, and Yuelu Mountain Laboratory.
Academician Yang Shan of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and Director of Dongting Laboratory; Deng Xiaoming, former Director of the China Rural Technology Development Center and a researcher; Yin Wenhui, Deputy Director of the Hunan Provincial Department of Science and Technology; Tong Laisheng, Deputy Mayor of Changsha Municipal People’s Government; Lan Yong, Secretary of the Party Committee of Hunan Agricultural University; Yu Yinghong, President of Hunan Academy of Agricultural Sciences; Yi Yueneng, Chairman of Yineng Pharma; Liu Miao, Party Committee Member and Deputy General Manager of Changsha Investment Holding Group Co., Ltd., representing the shareholder; and Ding Shenghua, Director of the Hunan Institute of Agricultural Product Processing and Quality Safety, along with other leaders and experts, attended the ceremony and participated in the unveiling of the Joint R&D Center.
Cooperation Agreements Signed at the Inauguration Ceremony
During the ceremony, two agreements were signed: the Joint R&D Center Cooperation Agreement and the Achievement Transformation Agreement.
Dr. Yi Yueneng, Chairman of Yineng Pharma, and Ding Shenghua, Director of the Hunan Institute of Agricultural Product Processing and Quality Safety, signed the agreements on behalf of the respective parties.
Witnessed by all the guests present, the center was officially established at the Hunan Institute of Agricultural Product Processing and Quality Safety.
Academician Yang Shan: Combining Original Innovation with Industrial Application
Academician Yang Shan expressed his expectations for the newly established Joint R&D Center.
He encouraged all participating parties to value the opportunities provided by the jointly established platform, make full use of Hunan’s resource advantages, and pursue both original innovation and industrial application.
The center should not only deepen basic research but also remain closely focused on actual market needs, producing technological achievements that can be implemented and that possess genuine competitiveness, thereby contributing scientific and technological strength to improving the quality and efficiency of Hunan’s biopharmaceutical industry.
Deng Xiaoming: Focus on AI-Driven Biosynthesis and Core Technologies
In his speech, Deng Xiaoming stated that the R&D center should build on its new starting point and take on its new mission.
The center should take industrial demand as its fundamental direction and technological innovation as its core driver, bringing together scientific research, talent, platform, and industrial resources from the four participating parties.
It will establish regular mechanisms for:
- Joint research and development
- Resource sharing
- Collaborative use of research achievements
The center will focus on key areas including biosynthesis of pharmaceutical ingredients and AI-driven intelligent drug development, concentrating resources on overcoming key technological bottlenecks.
The goal is to build an AI + biosynthesis pharmaceutical ingredient R&D and innovation platform that is leading in Hunan Province and first-class nationally.
The platform is expected to support the large-scale, high-end, and green development of Hunan’s biopharmaceutical industry, while contributing to the improvement and efficiency enhancement of regional strategic emerging industries.
Hunan Strengthens Collaboration Between Industry, Academia and Research
Yin Wenhui, Deputy Director of the Hunan Provincial Department of Science and Technology, emphasized that technological innovation depends on deep integration between industry, academia, and research.
The joint establishment of the R&D center by multiple parties represents a valuable practice for connecting scientific research with industrial development.
According to Yin Wenhui, the participating enterprises, research institutes, universities, and key laboratories should fully leverage their respective strengths, strengthen resource sharing and collaborative research, and accelerate the transformation and implementation of scientific and technological achievements.
Driven by technological innovation, these efforts are expected to further promote scientific and technological progress and the high-quality development of Hunan’s distinctive biopharmaceutical industry.
Yineng Pharma: AI + Natural Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine Development
Hunan Yineng Biopharmaceuticals Co., Ltd. is a leading domestic technology empowerment platform for the AI + natural medicine and full-process development and production of new traditional Chinese medicines, as well as a leading enterprise in China’s AI + CRO sector for traditional Chinese medicine.
As a specialized, sophisticated, and innovative “Little Giant” technology enterprise, Yineng Pharma has established three engineering technology centers covering:
- Intelligent research and manufacturing of molecular biopharmaceuticals
- Traditional Chinese medicine fingerprinting
- Development and industrialization of classical traditional Chinese medicine formulas
The company also has an advanced innovative intelligent traditional Chinese medicine R&D base.
Yineng Pharma has been deeply engaged in the field of digital and intelligent traditional Chinese medicine.
By conducting field visits to authentic medicinal material cultivation bases across China and collecting medicinal materials from different harvesting seasons, the company has carried out research involving 2 million batches and accumulated a research dataset containing data at the billion-plus level.
The company has also established more than 100 classical formula research databases.
To date, Yineng Pharma has completed preclinical development research for 97 classical formula compound preparations and 29 innovative traditional Chinese medicines, providing technology empowerment services to more than 100 organizations across China.
The establishment of the Joint R&D Center represents an important step in Yineng Pharma’s strategic expansion of its “AI + biopharmaceuticals” initiative.
Academician Yang Shan’s Team Advances Biosynthesis Technology
The team led by Academician Yang Shan has long focused on cutting-edge research in synthetic biology.
The team has a cell factory construction laboratory and a pilot-scale biosynthesis validation demonstration line.
It has conducted systematic research into functional natural products such as flavonoids and overcome a number of key technologies related to chassis strain construction and metabolic regulation.
The team has also continued to make progress toward industrialization.
At present, active functional ingredients including naringin, naringenin, and eriodictyol have all reached gram-scale biosynthesis levels, laying a solid foundation for the transition from laboratory research to industrial applications.
The team’s research direction is highly aligned with the biosynthesis of active pharmaceutical ingredients, providing strong scientific and technological support for the development of the Joint R&D Center.
AI + Biosynthesis: Connecting Traditional Medicine with Modern Drug Development
The establishment of the Joint R&D Center responds strategically to national initiatives concerning “AI+” and the “bioeconomy”.
By deeply integrating advanced AI algorithms with traditional Chinese medicine resources, the center aims to address key industry challenges including the difficulty of obtaining active pharmaceutical ingredients, low production yields, and high costs.
At the strategic level, the initiative is intended to contribute to Changsha’s development as a global R&D hub city.
At the industrial level, the center will promote the transformation of traditional Chinese medicine R&D from “experience-based trial and error” to “data-driven” approaches.
Relying on Yineng Pharma’s AI + CRO platform for digital and intelligent traditional Chinese medicine, the center will integrate the strengths of research institutes and leading enterprises and connect the entire industrial chain, from natural product discovery to green intelligent manufacturing.
This is intended to provide a model for the digital transformation of traditional Chinese medicine enterprises across China.
Building a Cross-Disciplinary Innovation Platform
At the academic level, the Joint R&D Center will serve as a cross-disciplinary collaborative innovation platform, promoting the integration of fields including:
- Artificial intelligence
- Biosynthesis
- Nutrition and health
Looking ahead, the center will focus on key core technology development and industrial applications.
Through these efforts, the Joint R&D Center aims to make greater contributions to the inheritance and innovation of traditional Chinese medicine and the development of new quality productive forces in the biopharmaceutical industry.
Post time: Aug-21-2026