Taiwan has the potential to become a biomedical powerhouse in three years if the nation can continue to provide capital access to the industry, Chen Lan-bo (陳良博), cofounder of AIDS drug developer TaiMed Biologics Inc (中裕新藥), said last week.
Chen, an emeritus at Harvard Medical School, expects new drug companies in Taiwan could generate US$30 billion in revenue a year, with 10 companies, including TaiMed, OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎), Taiwan Liposome Co (台灣微脂體) and TaiGen Biotechnology Co (太景生技) able to acquire drug permits over the next three years.
Chen said his optimism should encourage investors, including government officials, to continue funding the industry and help attract major global pharmaceutical companies to seek for potential collaboration opportunities here.
MIRACLE
“It is a miracle for the capital market in Taiwan to become so supportive to the industry,” Chen said at a press conference on Saturday. “The phenomenon was totally unimaginable five to 10 years ago.”
In 2007, Chen and David Ho (何大一), well known for his study on combination therapy to treat AIDS, founded TaiMed in Taipei with investments from the state-run National Development Fund and the private sector.
Chen said funding is especially important to the industry, but relying on stock markets might not be enough. Rather, private hedge funds or the government should also play a role to offer money in need, he said.
“The government should establish rules for local insurance companies to invest their money in the biotechnology industry, as pension funds in the US are one of the main sources for capital,” he said.
INVESTMENT TALKS
About eight years ago, when Chen worked as senior scientific adviser for New York-based hedge fund Caxton Health Holdings, he had talks with nine Taiwanese insurance companies about investing in biomedical firms.
However, their investment plans were denied by the government, as officials perceived making investment in the industry as too risky, he said.
According to Chen, the nine companies had idle funds of about NT$8 trillion to NT$15 trillion (US$267 trillion to US$501 trillion) at that time, and even 1 percent of the money would be helpful to many biomedical firms.
Asked whether there is a bubble for the biomedical industry in Taiwan, Chen said the same question was asked in the US in the past when the industry began to flourish.
“However, for the industry in Taiwan to really make some achievements, to have enough people believing the industry would be successful is a precondition,” he said.
At the conference on Saturday, Ho, the scientific director and CEO of Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at the Rockefeller University, said that for Taiwan to have a strong biotechnology industry like the US, the nation should adopt a more bottom-up decisionmaking process to allow scientists “the freedom to roam and explore,” rather than requiring them to focus on topics policymakers and officials are interested in.
LEARNING FROM FLIES
“We learn something about the immune system from the studies of flies. A fruit fly taught us that there is a whole part of our immune system that 20 years ago we didn’t know anything about,” Ho said. “It is uninhibited research that makes scientific breakthroughs, and important products emerge from those breakthroughs.”
Unlike companies in South Korea, where large private firms are backed by the government, the success of small biotechnology firms in Taiwan is the result of contributions from private citizens, including Samuel Yin (尹衍樑), chairman of Ruentex Group (潤泰集團) who helped fund TaiMed, Ho said, adding that although these firms are still young and deliver “more promises than products,” they will be more successful in coming years.
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