Local drug maker TaiGen Biotechnology Co (太景生技) yesterday said that it expected to get permission from Chinese and Taiwanese health authorities to sell its new pneumonia drug in the first half of next year.
TaiGen’s oral formulation of nemonoxacin, an antibiotic, is used to cure community-acquired pneumonia, and might also prove effective in curing other diseases, such as diabetic foot, the company said.
The oral formulation of nemonoxacin was the first drug to be tested under the cross-strait Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement’s (ECFA) cooperation pact on medicine, which expedites the approval process by allowing TaiGen to conduct clinical trials in both Taiwan and China, and to submit applications to both governments using the same document.
“The large and fast-growing medical market in China can no longer be overlooked, which is the reason we tried to make use of the pact,” TaiGen CEO and chairman Hsu Ming-chu (許明珠) said at a press conference yesterday.
The market for both oral and intravenous formulations of nemonoxacin in China could amount to about 1 billion yuan (NT$4.88 billion) a year, the company said.
FIRST FOR TAIWAN
TaiGen’s drug is likely to be the first drug from Taiwan to meet the requirements to be registered as a category 1.1 new drug in China, and would enjoy a higher price premium, which was an incentive given by the Chinese government to encourage new drugs to debut in the country, Hsu said.
The oral formulation of nemo-noxacin was licensed to China-based Zhejiang Medicine Co (浙江醫藥集團) — which will be responsible for the marketing and manufacturing of the drug in China — for US$8 million and royalties of 7 percent to 11 percent on future sales of the drug.
TRIALS
The intravenous formulation of nemonoxacin is still in the second stage of clinical trials in China and Taiwan, TaiGen said.
Compared with existing drugs, nemonoxacin can minimize side effects and reduce the possibility of developing resistance to the drug, Hsu said.
Meanwhile, the Cayman Island-based company said it plans to launch an initial public offering in Taiwan by issuing 634 million shares on its Emerging Stock Market (興櫃市場) early next month. It is scheduled to move to the more active GRETAI Securities Market by the end of this year.
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
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: The chipmaker last month raised its capital spending by 28 percent for this year to NT$32 billion from a previous estimate of NT$25 billion Contract chipmaker Powerchip Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp (力積電子) yesterday launched a new 12-inch fab, tapping into advanced chip-on-wafer-on-substrate (CoWoS) packaging technology to support rising demand for artificial intelligence (AI) devices. Powerchip is to offer interposers, one of three parts in CoWoS packaging technology, with shipments scheduled for the second half of this year, Powerchip chairman Frank Huang (黃崇仁) told reporters on the sidelines of a fab inauguration ceremony in the Tongluo Science Park (銅鑼科學園區) in Miaoli County yesterday. “We are working with customers to supply CoWoS-related business, utilizing part of this new fab’s capacity,” Huang said, adding that Powerchip intended to bridge
Microsoft Corp yesterday said that it would create Thailand’s first data center region to boost cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) infrastructure, promising AI training to more than 100,000 people to develop tech. Bangkok is a key economic player in Southeast Asia, but it has lagged behind Indonesia and Singapore when it comes to the tech industry. Thailand has an “incredible opportunity to build a digital-first, AI-powered future,” Microsoft chairman and chief executive officer Satya Nadella said at an event in Bangkok. Data center regions are physical locations that store computing infrastructure, allowing secure and reliable access to cloud platforms. The global embrace of AI
Qualcomm Inc, the world’s biggest seller of smartphone processors, gave an upbeat forecast for sales and profit in the current period, suggesting demand for handsets is increasing after a two-year slump. Revenue in the three months ended in June will be US$8.8 billion to US$9.6 billion, the company said in a statement Wednesday. Excluding certain items, earnings will be US$2.15 to US$2.35 a share. Analysts had projected sales of US$9.08 billion and earnings of US$2.16 a share. The outlook signals that the smartphone market has begun to bounce back, tracking with Qualcomm’s forecast that demand would gradually recover this year. The San