PHARMACEUTICALS
Lotus upgrades facility
Generic drugmaker Lotus Pharmaceuticals Co (美時化學製藥) yesterday announced that it has begun upgrading its manufacturing facility in Nantou County to expand the production of oral oncology products. The upgrade is expected to be completed in five years and cost tens of millions of US dollars, the company said, adding that its board has approved capital expenditure of US$11 million for this year. The Nantou site has been audited by local, US, EU and Japanese regulatory authorities, enabling it to manufacture products for nearly every market in the world, the firm said. In addition to standard solid oral dose manufacturing, the company can produce hormonal products, soft gelatin capsules, and cytotoxic and high-potency molecules, it said.
TECHNOLOGY
Health2Sync launches app
Taipei-based Health2Sync (慧康生活科技) yesterday launched HealthPass, an app that grants its users full control of their health data using blockchain technology. The start-up teamed up with Bitmark Inc, a Taipei-based blockchain developer, to register users’ health data as their personal digital property. Users would be able to selectively allow certain companies and services to access their health data as part of a monetization scheme. The start-up has also tapped CTBC Bank (中信銀行) to use the lender’s blockchain-based solution to enable transactions resulting from monetization. With the help of health data analysis, insurers would be able to create tailored products based on each user’s health, the firm said.
PHARMACEUTICALS
Pharmally sales up 20.27%
Pharmally International Holding Co (康友製藥), a maker of large-volume parenteral solutions for vaccines and intravenous medicines, yesterday announced that net income last year rose 17.44 percent year-on-year to NT$1.1 billion (US$35.59 million), or earnings per share of NT$14.29, while sales rose 20.27 percent to NT$5.18 billion. Pharmally shares closed unchanged at NT$214 in Taipei trading yesterday. The shares last year saw a spike in volatility, surging to more than NT$500 on progress made at its Indonesian poultry vaccine production plant, before falling below NT$140 after a filing revealed that company officials were trimming their holdings.
ELECTRONICS
Pegatron revenue slumps
Pegatron Corp (和碩) on Monday reported that revenue last month dropped 33.4 percent month-on-month, but rose 6.2 percent year-on-year to NT$81.65 billion. Revenue in the first two months rose 3.2 percent year-on-year to NT$204.28 billion, it said. The Jakarta Post reported that Pegatron’s new plant in Indonesia is expected to begin operations next month. Separately, Lite-On Technology Corp (光寶科技) on Monday reported that revenue last month declined 30.33 percent month-on-month and 16.6 percent year-on-year to NT$10.87 billion. Revenue in the first two months also fell 10.36 percent to NT$26.48 billion.
ELECTRONICS
Chungwa Picture shares fall
A plan to lay off 2,500 employees sent shares in Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (華映) into a tailspin yesterday, dealers said. The heavy selling emerged after the Taiwan Stock Exchange said that the financially troubled panel maker, which has filed for bankruptcy protection, would have to delist regardless of whether the restructuring plan is approved by the courts. Shares fell by the daily limit of 10 percent to close at NT$0.54.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained