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MediVas picks Taiwan for Asia office

"Most importantly, the government has a strong commitment in making the biotech and pharmaceutical industry a trillion [dollar] industry."

Kenneth Carpenter, president and chief executive officer of MediVas LLC

San Diego, California-based MediVas LLC, a drug and biologic delivery system developer, has selected Taiwan as the site of its Asian branch.

Taiwan beat out rivals South Korea, Singapore and China for the center.

Kenneth Carpenter, MediVas president and chief executive officer, said yesterday that Taiwan was probably the most dynamic economy in Asia and its way of doing business was very similar to that of the US.

"But, most importantly, the government has a strong commitment in making the biotech and pharmaceutical industry a trillion [dollar] industry," he said, referring to the decision to pick Taiwan.

The close bond between the government and the private biotechnology sector was shown last week when the state-owned National Development Fund announced it would invest US$20 million in TaiMed Biologics Co (宇昌生技), a new biotech start-up focusing on AIDS drugs.

Unlike most biotech and pharmaceutical firms, MediVas' business focuses mainly on changing the way pharmaceuticals are delivered.

Its technology platform uses protein-like polymeric biomaterials to make drug and biological delivery more effective than before.

But what makes the new investment in Taiwan more interesting is that MediVas Asia's facility here will focus on the development of so-called "super-generic" drugs, MediVas Asia president Huang Hui-hui (黃慧卉) said.

The firm defines super-generics as drugs whose original patents have expired and which are repatented by MediVas Asia.

"This repatenting is a result of modifying the delivery route of the drug and that will lead to several advantages," Huang Hui-hui said on the sidelines of yesterday's launch ceremony.

These potential advantages include longer duration of drug effectiveness, less undesirable side effects and changes in the method of administration, she said.

"For example, you might stop taking a drug by intravenous injection and start to use subcutaneous injections instead, or you may be allowed to use oral administration instead of subcutaneous injections used in the past," she said.

MediVas Asia had originally talked to local pharmaceuticals, whose business is primarily focused on production of cheap generic drugs, about joint development of super-generics.

But local firms showed little interest in the idea because they did not want invest in a market which is both small and fragmented, said Huang Bor-fuei (黃博輝), a director at the Development Center for Biotechnology (生物技術開發中心) in charge of industry promotion and marketing.

What makes the situation more worrisome is the eroding regional competitiveness of the nation's biotch sector in recent years, he said.

"People in Asia are now talking about emerging markets like China and India ... and Taiwan has drop-ped off the radar screen in biotechnology in this region," he said.

Minister Without Portfolio Lin Feng-ching (林逢慶) said new drug development is both time consuming and expensive with few guaranteed results.

He praised the introduction of super generics by MediVas Asia as a way to upgrade local industry's technological level.

Huang Hui-hui said MediVas Asia was deciding to set up its own research and development center here and would establish its own manufacturing facilities for super generics production by the end of this year.

MediVas Asia is based at Taipei's Nangang Software Park (南港軟體園區) and has an initial capitalization of NT$5 million (US$151,300).

The company plans to increase its capitalization by seeking government financing as well as new partners, including venture capital firms and local pharmaceuticals, Huang Hui-hui said.
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