On the afternoon of November 26th, a ceremony was held at NIT to inaugurate the establishment of the Ningbo Natural Products Technology Innovation Alliance (NNPTIA). He Xiaonan, Deputy Director of the Ningbo Science and Technology Bureau, and Zheng Di, Vice-President of NIT, jointly unveiled the commemoration plaque. Nearly 120 people attended the forum, including delegates from the Ningbo city government, members of the alliance, and teachers and students from NIT.

The NNPTIA alliance is composed of NIT, Ningbo Liwah Pharmaceutical Company, Ltd., and 17 of entities. The mission of the alliance is to accelerate research into natural products in Ningbo and to facilitate industrial development and innovation. With the goal of fostering this industrys core competitiveness, it will seek to perfect the industrial supply chain, use market mechanisms to cluster resources, and promote long-term and stable cooperation between business enterprises, universities, and research institutions. In addition, in order to accelerate industrial transformation, the alliance will address the problem of specific technical challenges such as supply chain bottlenecks.

Following the inauguration ceremony, the ;Natural Products Technology Innovation Forum was convened by experts and leaders from Zhejiang University. An illuminating report on the progress of the natural products industry was given by Professor Xie Juming, consulting expert and Chief Physician at the Zhejiang Traditional Chinese Medical Hospital, and by Professor Ren Qilong of the Department of Chemical Engineering at Zhejiang University. Their report was an ;academic feast for those in attendance.