Hyaluronic acid, commonly known as hyaluronic acid, is a natural linear polysaccharide found in human and animal tissues. Due to its excellent physicochemical properties and biological functions, such as good water retention, lubrication, viscoelasticity, biodegradability, and biocompatibility, hyaluronic acid is widely used in medicine, cosmetics, and food.

On April 22nd, the "Opportunity China, Journey through Shandong" foreign media interview activity kicked off with the Korean media delegation visiting Huaxi Biotech. They gained a close understanding of hyaluronic acid and delved into the trillion-dollar industry behind this small substance.

Established in 2000, Huaxi Biotech is a globally renowned biotechnology company and biomaterials company and a well-known enterprise for research, production, and sales of hyaluronic acid.

The interview team first visited the World Hyaluronic Acid Museum located in Huaxi Biotech's second factory area. This museum is the world's first museum themed on "hyaluronic acid" and is currently the only museum showcasing the development path and achievements of the hyaluronic acid industry in a panoramic way. The museum, along with the functional skincare product production demonstration workshop, forms the Huaxi Biotech Industrial Tourism Demonstration Workshop, covering an area of 17,000 square meters. It officially opened on June 18, 2020.

The museum is divided into five exhibition units: Hyaluronic Acid - an indispensable substance in the human body, the origin of hyaluronic acid, the golden age of extraction methods, the birth and development trajectory of fermentation methods, and the world's most extensive research and production base of hyaluronic acid. "The establishment of the museum is to let more people know about this significant substance for human health, understand its related knowledge, and today's industrial development in China," said the staff.

Subsequently, the interview team visited Huaxi Biotech's production workshop and product exhibition hall. During the visit, journalists tried skincare products containing hyaluronic acid, tasted hyaluronic acid water, and personally experienced the magical power of hyaluronic acid. "Hyaluronic acid water helps protect the gastrointestinal mucosa," explained the staff.

In 2012, Huaxi Biotech achieved the world's first large-scale production of oligohyaluronic acid using enzymatic cleavage. The advent of enzymatic cleavage not only solved the problems of structural damage and high impurities in hyaluronic acid molecules existing in previous chemical methods but also shortened the degradation cycle from the original 12-15 days to 5-6 hours, achieving significant cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Based on the enzymatic cleavage technology, Huaxi Biotech currently has over 200 specifications of hyaluronic acid raw material products and can produce the largest (over 4000KDa) and smallest (800Da) molecular weight hyaluronic acid in the world. Huaxi Biotech's enzymatic cleavage technology has successively obtained invention patents in China, the United States, the European Union, Japan, South Korea, and other places and won the "21st China Patent Gold Award" in 2019.

In 2012, Huaxi Biotech launched the "Runbaiyan" injection-grade modified sodium hyaluronate gel, which was approved for marketing by the original China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA). It is the first domestically produced cross-linked hyaluronic acid soft tissue filler approved by CFDA, filling the domestic gap in similar products and marking the beginning of the localization of hyaluronic acid medical aesthetic injections in China.

It is reported that relying on continuous technological innovation and progress, the application of hyaluronic acid has gradually expanded to emerging fields such as tissue engineering, family planning, gastrointestinal, oral, targeted drugs, and so on. With the acceleration of consumption upgrading and the continuous expansion of application scenarios, the industrial space and market prospects of hyaluronic acid, this small substance, will be even broader.

"China's New Development, World's New Opportunities." To showcase the accurate, comprehensive, and multi-dimensional China to the world and tell the story of China's development and opportunities, from April 22nd to 25th, China Shandong Net invited Korean central and metropolitan media and media associations to visit Jinan, Liaocheng, Linyi, and other places for on-site visits to personally experience the new dynamics of economic and social development in Shandong, discovering opportunities in China during the Journey through Shandong.

(Li Xiaotong; Gong Lili; Hua Shan; Yuan Yuhua; Liu Xiaohan; Lou Xinyu; Hou Yawen; Liang Ruixin; Xu Jiayi; Li Jiayin; Liu Lu; Yang Yang; Chong Yaqi; Yuan Yaning)