The granular-like aerobic sludge was quickly prepared through firstly three weeks cultivating the activated sludge in tank with synthetic wastewater and then one month in airlift sequencing batch reactor (SBR) with real biopharmaceutical wastewater by reasonably optimizing operation parameters based on the variation of sludge volume index (SVI). Concentrations of chemical oxygen demand (COD) and NH₄⁺-N of the wastewater fed to submerged membrane bioreactors (SMBRs) were around 1030 mg/L and 60 mg/L, respectively. Experimental results showed the residual of COD, NH₄⁺-N, NO₂^--N and NO₃^--N for the acclimated activated sludge SMBR was 30~60 mg/L, 0.5~1.2 mg/L, 0, and 0.8~2.0 mg/L, while for the granular-like aerobic sludge SMBR was only 0~1.0 mg/L, 0~0.2 mg/L, 0, and 0~0.03 mg/L, typical analytical data also showed that the removal efficiencies of total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorous (TP) were 32.86%, 99.52% and 17.54%, 77.68% for acclimated activated sludge and granular-like aerobic sludge SMBR systems, respectively. It also did not show obvious stratification or crush of the granular-like aerobic sludge in SMBR with a size of 0.5~0.8 mm during the operation. The stability under continuous operation in SMBRs showed that the permeate flux with acclimated activated sludge rapidly declined by about 50%, 70% and 90% when operation around 30 h, 150 h and 320 h, while the granular-like aerobic sludge system was quite stable. SEM observation indicated that the surface of membrane used in SMBR with the granular-like aerobic sludge was almost the same with the fresh membrane, while the surface of membrane used in SMBR with acclimated activated sludge clearly reflected the relative quantities of the different foulants on the membrane.