Cancer treatment developer Polaris Group (北極星藥業集團) yesterday said it has no plans to exit the nation’s capital markets, even though the local investment environment is becoming increasingly unfavorable to the biotechnology sector.
The comments came after two biotechnology firms announced their plans to delist from the Taipei Exchange’s Emerging Stock Board earlier this month.
Polaris Group is fully focused on developing its product pipeline and its operation is not affected by its peers’ decisions, Polaris Group chief executive officer Wu Bor-wen (吳伯文) told an investors’ conference.
“Delisting from the local capital markets seems to have become fashionable recently, but we have no plans to follow suit,” Wu said.
Confidence in the local biotechnology sector has been waning, as investors have been rocked by a lack of disclosure by companies, as well as extreme volatility in stock prices, Wu said.
Investors should be aware that developers of new drugs can incur lengthy periods of losses during clinical trials before new products gain regulatory approval for commercialization, Wu said
Such developers often cannot provide monthly updates as clinical trials are ongoing, he said, adding that many firms lack the resources to respond to investors’ questions and concerns.
The investor relations department at Polaris Group has been occupied with clarifying concerns from misleading reports and fake news, Wu said.
The company has also made every effort to pacify emotional outbursts over its share price, he added.
The company reported a net loss of NT$421 million (US$14.02 million) for the first half of this year, an improvement from the previous year’s net loss of NT$511 million. Losses per share were NT$2.04.
Stephen Garrett, a 27-year-old graduate student, always thought he would study in China, but first the country’s restrictive COVID-19 policies made it nearly impossible and now he has other concerns. The cost is one deterrent, but Garrett is more worried about restrictions on academic freedom and the personal risk of being stranded in China. He is not alone. Only about 700 American students are studying at Chinese universities, down from a peak of nearly 25,000 a decade ago, while there are nearly 300,000 Chinese students at US schools. Some young Americans are discouraged from investing their time in China by what they see
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
MAJOR DROP: CEO Tim Cook, who is visiting Hanoi, pledged the firm was committed to Vietnam after its smartphone shipments declined 9.6% annually in the first quarter Apple Inc yesterday said it would increase spending on suppliers in Vietnam, a key production hub, as CEO Tim Cook arrived in the country for a two-day visit. The iPhone maker announced the news in a statement on its Web site, but gave no details of how much it would spend or where the money would go. Cook is expected to meet programmers, content creators and students during his visit, online newspaper VnExpress reported. The visit comes as US President Joe Biden’s administration seeks to ramp up Vietnam’s role in the global tech supply chain to reduce the US’ dependence on China. Images on
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last