PHARMACEUTICALS
Drug awarded orphan status
OBI Pharma Inc (浩鼎) yesterday announced that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted orphan drug designation for OBI-3424, its treatment for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). OBI-3424 is a first-in-class DNA alkylating agent targeting cancers that overexpress the aldo-keto reductase 1C3 enzyme. This is the second FDA orphan drug designation for OBI-3424. On July 9, it was granted orphan drug status for the treatment of hepatocellular carcinoma. A phase I/II study of OBI-3424 in patients with solid tumors, including hepatocellular carcinoma and castrate-resistant prostate cancer, has commenced at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. “We are excited that the FDA has recognized the need to develop novel targeted therapeutic agents such as OBI-3424 in the fight against ALL,” OBI Pharma general manager Amy Huang (黃秀美) said.
PANELMAKERS
CPT cuts 1.4% of staff
LCD panelmaker Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (CPT, 中華映管) yesterday said that it has reduced its workforce by about 1.4 percent, while refuting rumors of a 20 percent cut in staff. The company said that it has laid off 65 employees who were performing poorly, and that it is part of its biannual review and is unrelated to its operating performance. As of the end of the first half of this year, the company had recorded aggregate losses of NT$2.88 billion (US$93.53 million), translating into a loss per share of NT$0.48.
E-COMMERCE
Taobao joins Line platform
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s (阿里巴巴) Taobao (淘寶) yesterday entered the Taiwanese market by joining an e-commerce platform operated by the Line messaging app. Line is the biggest chat app in Taiwan with about 19 million active users. Taobao has been offering steep discounts and bonus loyalty points to attract users. Local e-commerce operators have voiced concerns about the Chinese giant’s cheap goods and the effect they could have on the market. A day earlier, Taobao and Test-Rite International Co (特力集團), a local furniture, kitchen and home retailer, launched a smart store in Taiwan equipped with electronic price tags and advanced displays.
BANKING
Lender gains certification
Shanghai Commercial and Savings Bank Ltd (上海商業儲蓄銀行) yesterday said that its blockchain solution for issuing external confirmations has been certified by Grant Thornton International, a leading accounting and financial and business advisory firm. That makes it the first Taiwanese lender to have a certified solution based on distributed ledger technology, the bank said. With blockchain’s automation and indelible ledger capabilities, the time it takes to issue external confirmations can be cut from one month to one day, as the process does not require intensive manual auditing and verification, it said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
SciVision inks licensing deal
SciVision Biotech Inc (科妍生技), which produces hyaluronic acid for use in plastic surgery and the treatment of degenerative joint diseases, yesterday said that it had signed an exclusive 10-year licensing deal with Pennsylvania-based OrthogenRx, Inc for its injectable soft tissue filler. The US company is to oversee commercialization of the product, which is expected to gain regulatory approval from US authorities next year.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts