TCI Co Ltd (大江生醫) yesterday showcased its biomining initiative, which uses automation to speed up its efforts to amass a library of marketable intellectual property (IP) assets, at the BioTaiwan exhibition at the Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center in Taipei.
The company — which is primarily a contract manufacturer of dietary supplements, beverages and skin care products — said that the initiative grew out of its research and development efforts over the past decade.
It incorporates gene technology, big data analysis and robotics to automate the time-consuming process of testing for active ingredients, it said.
To identify new and effective active ingredients, the new biomining system incorporates more than 100 cellular tests, 200 genetic tests, 15 types of botantical ingredient identity tests and seven types of biotransformation tests, TCI said.
By automating preparatory and analysis processes that were previously done manually, the company said that the time required to discover active ingredients could be shortened by 70 percent.
Typically, it can take up to 17,700 separate experiments and lab processes to identify a new active ingredient, the company added.
Over the past six to seven years, TCI, which is based in Taipei’s Neihu District (內湖), has amassed more than 300 IP assets, and the process is speeding up dramatically as its biomining system is continuously refined.
To date, the company said it has developed a variety of probiotics and supplements, including fat-burning ice cream.
The company reported that net income in the first quarter jumped to NT$224 million (US$7.31 million), compared with NT$124 million a year earlier, or earnings per share of NT$2.57.
In the first six months of this year, consolidated revenue rose 64.37 percent annually to NT$2.9 billion from NT$31.77 billion in the same period last year, the company’s data showed.
TCI shares ended down 0.7 percent at NT$566 in Taipei trading yesterday. They have risen 92.71 percent since the beginning of the year.
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