Former Vice Premier Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and AIDS research pioneer David Ho (何大一) will lead a new biotech company that will be jointly owned by the government and private investors to speed up the research and development of AIDS drugs, the nation's top economic planner said yesterday.
Ho Mei-yueh (何美玥), chairwoman of the Council for Economic Planning and Development, said the state-owned National Development Fund (NDF) would help finance the establishment of TaiMed Biologics Co (宇昌生技), which is planning to raise US$50 million in capital. Mo said the NDF plans to hold a 40 percent share in the company.
The government has authorized Tsai to assume the chairmanship and David Ho, a Taiwan-born AIDS expert and director of the New York-based Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center, would serve as a co-founder of TaiMed Biologics, which would be a subsidiary of TaiMed Inc (台懋公司), a Taiwan-based biotech firm, Ho said.
Noting that TaiMed Biologics has gained patent authorization from US-based Genentech Inc for its lead clinical product, TNX-355, a potential treatment for HIV and AIDS patients, Ho said it marks a breakthrough in Taiwan's biotech industry.
She said the US company reported positive results in a Phase 2 clinical trial of TNX-355 and that a Phase 2b trial is expected to be conducted in the fourth quarter of this year in the US, Europe and South America.
TaiMed Biologics will be located in the Hsinchu Biomedical Park (新竹生醫園區) and will be the first enterprise to be set up in the park.
Other members of the TaiMed Biologics board of directors include Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), Lee Yuan-tseh (李遠哲), a Nobel laureate and former president of the Academic Sinica and Chen Lan-bo (陳良博), founder of Synta Pharmaceuticals Corp, a biopharmaceutical company.
Quanta Computer Inc (廣達) chairman Barry Lam (林百里) is expected to share his views about the artificial intelligence (AI) industry’s prospects during his speech at the company’s 37th anniversary ceremony, as AI servers have become a new growth engine for the equipment manufacturing service provider. Lam’s speech is much anticipated, as Quanta has risen as one of the world’s major AI server suppliers. The company reported a 30 percent year-on-year growth in consolidated revenue to NT$1.41 trillion (US$43.35 billion) last year, thanks to fast-growing demand for servers, especially those with AI capabilities. The company told investors in November last year that
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Intel Corp has named Tasha Chuang (莊蓓瑜) to lead Intel Taiwan in a bid to reinforce relations between the company and its Taiwanese partners. The appointment of Chuang as general manager for Intel Taiwan takes effect on Thursday, the firm said in a statement yesterday. Chuang is to lead her team in Taiwan to pursue product development and sales growth in an effort to reinforce the company’s ties with its partners and clients, Intel said. Chuang was previously in charge of managing Intel’s ties with leading Taiwanese PC brand Asustek Computer Inc (華碩), which included helping Asustek strengthen its global businesses, the company
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
RSS