NSC rethinking plans forclinical research facility

The National Science Council (NSC) is exploring the possibility setting up a 700-bed clinical medical research center not in one new purpose-built facility at the proposed Jhubei Biomedical Park in Hsinchu County but divided among several hospitals and medical centers, council Chief Chen Chien-jen (陳建仁) said last week.

Chen said the original plan to set up a 700-bed research center in the park is being reviewed.

The center, designed to help evaluate the medical effects of medicines and technology to be developed by firms in the Jhubei park, had been considered a vital part of the council's plan to build the park into a regional bio-medical powerbase.

Chen said a clinical research center of the scale envisioned would need to include various hospital departments in order to be financially viable.

Chen said it would be much cheaper to have several regional medical centers -- such as the National Taiwan University Hospital and the Tri Service General Hospital -- to each run 100 or 200 bed research centers. An independent clinical research center would have difficulty surviving financially, he said.

The proposed Jhubei park is supposed to house biotechonological firms devoted to the development of medical equipment and products, Chen said.

The proposed center has been controversial, with Su Ih-jen (蘇益仁), former chief of the Center for Disease Control, claiming last month that it was a pork barrel project that would only be a drain on government resources.