TaiGen Biotechnology Co (太景生技) yesterday said it has clinched a deal with the Bermuda-based pharmaceutical firm Warner Chilcott PLC to market a new TaiGen product in the European, US and Japanese markets.
The agreement for Warner Chilcott to conduct the phase III clinical trial of nemonoxacin — a new-generation antibiotic — and commercialize the drug in these markets was finalized in August, TaiGen chairwoman and chief executive officer Hsu Ming-chu (許明珠) told a press conference.
Under the deal, TaiGen received an upfront payment from Warner Chilcott and would be eligible for certain “milestone payments” during the various clinical trial stages, as well as a royalty based on Warner Chilcott’s net sales of the drug.
Hsu refused to say how much the deal would contribute to future earnings, although she cited estimates from healthcare consultant IMS Health Inc, which said peak sales of nemonoxacin could reach US$1.2 billion a year after commercialization.
The Neihu (內湖) biotech firm was founded in 2001, and partly invested in by Yuen Foong Yu Group (永豐餘集團). It licensed nemonoxacin from Procter & Gamble (P&G) Co in June 2005, after the latter developed and carried out the phase I trial for the drug.
TaiGen carried out the phase II trials on community-acquired bacterial pneumonia and diabetic foot-infection patients, in which nemonoxacin demonstrated an excellent efficacy and safety profile.
Last October, Warner Chilcott acquired P&G’s global branded prescription pharmaceutical business, and decided to license the drug back from TaiGen, Hsu said.
“The deal proved TaiGen’s capability to conduct clinical trials within the standards set by the US Food and Drug Administration,” she said.
Warner Chilcott focuses on the gastroenterology, women’s healthcare, dermatology and urology segments of the North American and Western European markets.
Hsu said TaiGen would continue to develop antibiotic drugs, but it would license the commercialization of new drugs to other partners, such as Warner Chilcott.
“Commercialization and marketing activities for new drugs are very capital intensive. Let us focus on what we do best: research and development,” she said.
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to