Democratic Progressive Party presidential candidate Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday said Taiwan should seek to become an Asia-Pacific center for medical biotechnological research, tapping the nation’s advantages of possessing a genetic database of certain Asian ethnic groups and an understanding their lifestyle habits and environments.
Biotechnology is a fast-moving field and medical biotechnology offers significance prospects for Taiwanese industry, she said.
“We have excellent human resources in clinical medicine and research to study diseases specific to ethnic Chinese, with a renowned international reputation. We also possess a world-class medical system with sufficient medical professionals and facilities that are well-equipped to conduct clinical tests for new medicines and medical devices,” Tsai said.
Photo: CNA
“There are a lot of challenges too, as it is a capital-intensive, skill-intensive and expertise-intensive industry. This is why we should integrate efforts by the government, academic institutes and industries to continue to lay the groundwork by strengthening our human resources, capital, intellectual property and regulations for establishing Taiwan as the research and industrial center of the medical biotechnology of the Asia-Pacific region,” she said.
“Three major connections” are to be made — to future opportunities, to the global market and to local needs,” she said.
Cooperation could be pursued in core areas of medical biotechnology with the developed countries, such as the three medical biotechnology research strongholds in the US — Boston and Irvine and San Diego in California — and European countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, Sweden and the Netherlands, Tsai said, adding that Japan, with whom Taiwan already cooperates in vaccine making, is another possible partner.
“We plan to push for coordination and integration of international regulations and standards, and for the implementation of the Cross-Strait Cooperation Agreement on Medicine and Public Health Affairs,” Tsai said.
Teng Che-ming (鄧哲明), professor emeritus at National Taiwan University’s School of Medicine, said negotiation over the use of Taiwanese medical products in China would be continued.
There is also room for cross-strait cooperation in the development of new medicines for Asian or ethnic Chinese-specific diseases, such as clinical experiments, he said.
“Taiwan’s advantages are that we have a sufficient grasp of certain inherited genes specific to [East Asian people], their lifestyle habits and the geographic environments. So Taiwan could be the experiment base and the early market of the industry, responding to local needs first before making the products available globally,” Tsai said.
Science parks in Taipei; Jhubei (竹北), Hsinchu County; Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung would be linked for cross-support and interaction to build Taiwan as a hub for the industry, she said.
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) today issued a sea warning for Typhoon Fung-wong effective from 5:30pm, while local governments canceled school and work for tomorrow. A land warning is expected to be issued tomorrow morning before it is expected to make landfall on Wednesday, the agency said. Taoyuan, and well as Yilan, Hualien and Penghu counties canceled work and school for tomorrow, as well as mountainous district of Taipei and New Taipei City. For updated information on closures, please visit the Directorate-General of Personnel Administration Web site. As of 5pm today, Fung-wong was about 490km south-southwest of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan's southernmost point.
Almost a quarter of volunteer soldiers who signed up from 2021 to last year have sought early discharge, the Legislative Yuan’s Budget Center said in a report. The report said that 12,884 of 52,674 people who volunteered in the period had sought an early exit from the military, returning NT$895.96 million (US$28.86 million) to the government. In 2021, there was a 105.34 percent rise in the volunteer recruitment rate, but the number has steadily declined since then, missing recruitment targets, the Chinese-language United Daily News said, citing the report. In 2021, only 521 volunteers dropped out of the military, the report said, citing
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Nearly 5 million people have signed up to receive the government’s NT$10,000 (US$322) universal cash handout since registration opened on Wednesday last week, with deposits expected to begin tomorrow, the Ministry of Finance said yesterday. After a staggered sign-up last week — based on the final digit of the applicant’s national ID or Alien Resident Certificate number — online registration is open to all eligible Taiwanese nationals, foreign permanent residents and spouses of Taiwanese nationals. Banks are expected to start issuing deposits from 6pm today, the ministry said. Those who completed registration by yesterday are expected to receive their NT$10,000 tomorrow, National Treasury
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