From researchers to executives, people in the biotechnology industry are always thinking about raising more capital to help fund the endless research and development needed to make technological breakthroughs.
But the sector may have to pay more attention on marketing and branding if it wants to stand out from competitors in the global arena, the head of the semi-official Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) said yesterday at a marketing forum in Taipei.
"Anything that remains local will lose the potential for development," ITRI president Johnsee Lee (李鍾熙) said. "But marketing and networking with international alliances will strengthen our biotech industry."
The forum on marketing for Asian life-science companies was held by BiotechEast Co (東方生技), a Taipei-based public relations and marketing consultancy specializing in the biotech industry.
The firm also signed an agreement with Frost & Sullivan yesterday, making it the sole agent in this country for the New York-based, high-tech market consultancy.
"Taiwan must improve its collaborative efforts with the global life-science community through increased attention to marketing, promotion and networking abroad," BiotechEast president David Silver said.
Marketing and branding is critical to the nation's biotech industry, given the keen competition from regional rivals such as South Korea and Singapore, he said.
Silver said South Korea emphasized its international presence by setting up research units in other countries including the UK, China and Israel in recent years. It also established "Korea BioValley" last year in San Diego, California, the hub of biotechnology, he said.
Singapore places a strong emphasis on overseas promotions, keeps a high profile in international media such as CNN and seeks out international companies for foreign talent, such as ES Cell International, an Australian company that recruited Alan Colman, who became famous for cloning the sheep "Dolly" in 1997.
Taiwan's biotech industry, however, doesn't have enough information available for the international community for those seeking collaboration or investment, said Chen Chei-hsiang (陳啟祥), director of the Biotechnology & Pharmaceutical Industries Program Office (BPIPO) under the Ministry of Economic Affairs.
"We are considering helping the industry promote itself to the world to enhance global visibility," Chen said.
In 2002, the government announced it would promote the biotech industry for the next 10 years, making it one of the key sectors in the "2 Trillion, Twin Star" investment plan. Annual revenues in the industry rose 13 percent to NT$125.6 billion last year from NT$110.9 billion in 2002, according to figures provided by BPIPO.
The government plans to pour NT$150 billion into the sector by 2006, hoping to boost annual revenue to NT$250 billion by 2006.
"The Taiwanese biotech industry has great advantages in terms of government support, strong technological background and robust financial environment to acquire capital," said Aditya Sapru, Frost & Sullivan's director of biotech life science practice in the Asia-Pacific region.
BUSINESS UPDATE: The iPhone assembler said operations outlook is expected to show quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year growth for the second quarter Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday reported strong growth in sales last month, potentially raising expectations for iPhone sales while artificial intelligence (AI)-related business booms. The company, which assembles the majority of Apple Inc’s smartphones, reported a 19.03 percent rise in monthly sales to NT$510.9 billion (US$15.78 billion), from NT$429.22 billion in the same period last year. On a monthly basis, sales rose 14.16 percent, it said. The company in a statement said that last month’s revenue was a record-breaking April performance. Hon Hai, known also as Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團), assembles most iPhones, but the company is diversifying its business to
Apple Inc has been developing a homegrown chip to run artificial intelligence (AI) tools in data centers, although it is unclear if the semiconductor would ever be deployed, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The effort would build on Apple’s previous efforts to make in-house chips, which run in its iPhones, Macs and other devices, according to the Journal, which cited unidentified people familiar with the matter. The server project is code-named ACDC (Apple Chips in Data Center) within the company, aiming to utilize Apple’s expertise in chip design for the company’s server infrastructure, the newspaper said. While this initiative has been
GlobalWafers Co (環球晶圓), the world’s No. 3 silicon wafer supplier, yesterday said that revenue would rise moderately in the second half of this year, driven primarily by robust demand for advanced wafers used in high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips, a key component of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. “The first quarter is the lowest point of this cycle. The second half will be better than the first for the whole semiconductor industry and for GlobalWafers,” chairwoman Doris Hsu (徐秀蘭) said during an online investors’ conference. “HBM would definitely be the key growth driver in the second half,” Hsu said. “That is our big hope
The consumer price index (CPI) last month eased to 1.95 percent, below the central bank’s 2 percent target, as food and entertainment cost increases decelerated, helped by stable egg prices, the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) said yesterday. The slowdown bucked predictions by policymakers and academics that inflationary pressures would build up following double-digit electricity rate hikes on April 1. “The latest CPI data came after the cost of eating out and rent grew moderately amid mixed international raw material prices,” DGBAS official Tsao Chih-hung (曹志弘) told a news conference in Taipei. The central bank in March raised interest rates by