Vita nets 80% of funds after second effort

Vita Genomics Inc (賽亞基因科技), one of Taiwan's newest biotech upstarts and a partner of Celera Genomics, said yesterday it collected 80 percent of its target amount of investment money at the end of June.

"The second round [of fund-raising] closed around the end of June and it looks relatively okay. We have a lot of commitments already made. So, we'll get at least 80 percent of our target. Our goal was NT$3.5 billion [US$100 million]," said Ellson Chen (陳奕雄), CEO of Vita Genomics and former principle scientist at Celera.

Analysts said that considering the current investment climate, reaching 80 percent funding on a new biotech venture is not bad. Despite the promise of biotechnology, most investors expect to wait up to 10 years for a return, and currently few are willing to look that far down the road.

Vita has had its fair share of problems with investment as well. Earlier this year, Uni-President Enterprises Corp (統一企業) -- one of Taiwan's largest food producers -- said it would sell of its entire US$100 million biotechnology fund, and forego investing in Vita Genomics. Uni-President chairman Kao Ching-yuan (高清愿) said his firm needed the money for further investment in China.

Despite the loss of Uni-President, Vita won over at least two major business groups during the second round of investment, including the Shin Kong Enterprise Group (新光) and Chi Mei Enterprise Co Ltd (奇美).

Originally dubbed "Celera Asia," Vita reportedly gave US-biotech powerhouse Celera Genomics a 5 percent share of the company in return for access to Celera's huge database of genetic information and online research tools. With regard to the changed relationship with Celera, one industry watcher had harsh criticism for Vita.

"It hurts Taiwan when a company comes in and says that it's partnered with Celera Genomics and a lot of people go out and buy the stock because they're all excited and then it turns out that there isn't a reality there," the industry watcher said on condition of anonymity.

But Chen does not back away from such criticism, saying he believes that as a local company, Vita can go much further than Celera Asia.

"Let me explain a little bit. Actually, `Celera Asia' was our code name when I was still with Celera ... Eventually, our conclusion was that you need local input for a program of this magnitude to work," said Chen.

Chen's own past experience with Celera led him to this conclusion. In the mid-1990s, Celera's parent company, Applera, opened a company in mainland China dubbed Gene Corp. Set up to collect patient samples, Gene Corp "was never really received very well because it was [considered] that invader from the `enemy nation,'" according to Chen.

So Chen decided to seek local funding for a local setup, with the ability to move within biotech circles in Taiwan as a local firm, instead of a foreign one. He also points out that Celera remains a strategic partner that "will provide databases and we will share certain rights with them."

Vita plans to concentrate on finding drug targets through researching the human genome as it relates to Asians. Initially, the company is looking into eight or nine diseases including cancers that are prevalent in Asia, including liver, cervical and nasopharyngeal [nose].