A US cable released by WikiLeaks said TaiMed Inc, a biotechnology company that cooperates with US firm Genentech, was “leading the way into new biotech.”
In the cable dated Dec. 3, 2007, issued by the American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), then-AIT director Stephen Young also gave high praise to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), referring to her as a “graduate of Cornell and the London School of Economics, [who] exemplifies the new blood that Taiwan is relying on to remain competitive in the world market.”
Tsai was “optimistic about Taiwan’s ability to excel in biotech,” the cable said, adding that “with their expertise and experience, they could provide the impetus for Taiwan to develop a sector with as much potential as high technology.”
“Biotech accounts for up to US$800 billion in product value worldwide, of which Taiwan -contributes only 0.6 percent, or about US$4.7 billion, compared with US$200 billion for Japan, US$15.9 billion for Singapore and US$7.5 billion for South Korea,” it said. “Taiwan is trying hard to catch up with its regional competitors.”
Taiwan’s economic future lies in biotechnology and given its large pool of talent both at home and abroad, it has the potential to develop quickly, the cable said.
The cable also mentioned Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠), saying he is “an MIT graduate and genomics expert who worked at Scripps Research Institute, before returning to Taiwan.”
“Wong’s interest is in chemical biology and new drugs, and he is the prime mover behind Taiwan’s efforts to attract biotech,” it added.
However, the cable also cited deficiencies in the education of Intellectual Property Rights personnel, marketing and wages as being potential challenges to the sector’s development.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater