Biomedical doctor Nan Zhenhong gave up his cushy job and life in the United States and decided to start his own business from the ground up in Taicang, a county-level city in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, in 2017.

Nan studied and taught biological medicine in the US for more than 10 years, and his post-doctoral research at the University of Minnesota revolved around pathogenesis of the central nervous system disease.

However, Nan decided to take a step back from research and transition into management some time ago. "Although my life was stable at that time, I always felt like I wasn't making proper use of my skillset," said Nan.

The idea to start his own business occurred to Nan after seeing his peers succeed in the bio-pharmaceutical industry back in China. To him, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

A Suzhou entrepreneurial event in the United States in 2017 introduced Nan to Taicang, and he decided to visit a local bio-pharmaceutical company in the town with the event organizers.

Nan was impressed by the level of development of the bio-pharmaceutical industry in China and felt that the company's goals aligned nicely with his area of expertise.

Over the course of a single month, fifty-something-year-old Nan quit his job in the US and moved to Taicang to take up a position as the director of the company's pharmacology department.

"I've worked in Taicang for a year. In that year, I established my own teams and platforms from nothing, and witnessed the growth of biomedical talents in China", said Nan.

Currently, Nan and his team are developing a platform to evaluate a central nervous system disease in primates. The platform will primarily offer services in preclinical efficacy verification to drug developers.