Medics are also inventors of new technology and new products

Local doctors and nurses are being encouraged to become inventors of new technology, new products and new clinical practices.

Shanghai's Zhongshan Hospital signed an agreement with Shanghai Pharmaceuticals Holding Co on Thursday to transfer 21 intellectual property rights for industrialization.

The 21 projects involve a testing kit for diseases like liver cancer, acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis and dilated cardiomyopathy as well as modifications of endoscopes, and surgical instruments for cardiothoracic surgery, instruments for tumor biopsies and pipes for monitoring respiration during sleep.

All these are the newest clinical achievements of teams from various departments.

Officials from Zhongshan Hospital said the hospital has been included in the first round of constructing China's national medical center and building a model center for integration of medical practices and industrialization in Shanghai to boost health and pharmaceutical development.

"Clinical professionals' inventions and modifications usually target common and major diseases like cancer and cardiovascular syndromes," said Dr Zhou Jian, vice president of Zhongshan Hospital.

"Chinese experts have made progress in new drug development, equipment improvements, disease testing and after-treatment evaluation, and more local inventions will be introduced into the medical field at home and abroad to benefit patients."

Through cooperation with Zhongshan Hospital, pharmaceutical and medical equipment companies have developed the world's first panoramic PET-CT imaging system, the first testing kit for in vitro liver cancer diagnosis and the nation's first domestically-made biodegradable heart stent to break the monopoly of foreign producers.