Encumbered by property and environmental controversies for more than a decade, the National Biotechnology Research Park in Taipei’s Nangang District (南港) is slated for completion on Wednesday, Academia Sinica officials said.
Once completed, the park’s seven buildings are to accommodate the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s Food and Drug Administration, the Ministry of Science and Technology’s National Laboratory Animal Center, the Ministry of Economic Affairs’ Development Center for Biotechnology, an incubation center, two Academia Sinica research centers, and a bioinformatics center.
The project, with a development budget of about NT$22.5 billion (US$767.92 million), is managed by a special committee made up of seven ranking officials from Academia Sinica — the nation’s highest research institution — and the three ministries.
Photo provided by Academia Sinica
It is “very exciting” to mark the completion of a “tremendous project” that is so critical to the growth of the nation’s biotechnological sector, said Academia Vice President Liu Fu-tong (劉扶東), who serves as committee head.
Located near Academia Sinica and the Nangang MRT Station, the park covers 25.44 hectares that used to house the Ministry of National Defense’s 202nd Arsenal.
The land was designated as the park’s site during former president Chen Shui-bian’s (陳水扁) presidency, and the construction project was launched in 2007 by then-Academia Sinica president Wong Chi-huey (翁啟惠).
Wong’s indictment in 2016 on insider trading, corruption and misconduct charges involving biotech company OBI Pharma Inc (台灣浩鼎) case, which the Taipei Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office dropped last month, led to his resignation in May that year, making him unfit to continue leading the project.
There had been speculation that the project might be further delayed. Former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and President Tsai Ying-wen (蔡英文) each expressed concern about its progress.
Tsai, who helped negotiate the land use when she served as vice premier, in June last year said the park’s construction would be completed by the end of last year.
Academia Sinica President James Liao (廖俊智) was on Feb. 21 quoted by the Chinese-language Economic Daily News as saying that he expected “part of” the park to be inaugurated by May 20 and the first business to have been attracted by the end of April.
In an interview with the Taipei Times on Friday last week, Liu said the institution had obtained all the architectural licenses for the buildings by Feb. 14 and expected to mark the park’s completion on Wednesday.
However, he added that the date of its formal inauguration was yet to be determined.
Initial controversy over land use was the main reason for delays, as it took about six years for the Ministry of National Defense to hand over the land, Liu said.
One of the most vehement opponents to the project, literary writer Chang Hsiao-feng (張曉風), said the construction project would destroy a precious wetland on the site — what she called “the last lung lobe of Taipei.”
When construction was about to begin in 2010, Chang even knelt down in front of the media in a call to then-president Ma to stop exploiting the land.
It was not until 2014 that the park’s construction actually began and other factors, such as the environmental impact assessment process, heavy rainfall impeding construction and difficult deployment of workers, led to further delays, Liu said.
“Its construction can be said to be the nation’s most challenging project ever,” especially as great effort was put toward environmental protection, Academia Department of General Affairs director Fan I-chun (范毅軍) said.
The land is historically and ecologically valuable as it contains the Sanchongpu Pond (三重埔埤), which can be traced back to at least the Japanese colonial period, he said, adding that it is home to a great variety of wetland creatures.
To minimize the project’s environmental effect, the institution reserved 14.19 hectares — over half of the total development area — as a forested area and 4 hectares as a wetland.
The developers are confident that the past environment has been successfully restored, with its ecological conditions even better than a century ago, Fan said.
Some of the institution’s retired researchers have scrutinized the park’s construction carefully recording the number of organisms there, Academia Secretary-General Peng Shin-kun (彭信坤) said.
With the park’s inauguration, the institution can join and strengthen the local biotechnology sector, given that “lacking connection with industries is one of its shortcomings,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Hsinchu Biomedical Science Park, planned by the Ministry of Science and Technology at a budget of NT$2.85 billion, is now under construction on a 38.1-hectare site near Hsinchu High Speed Rail Station.
All spaces in its two buildings have been rented out, with more firms seeking to enter the park, the ministry said at a groundbreaking ceremony for the park’s second biotechnological building last month.
Asked if the two parks are vying for business investment, Liu said that the Nangang park seeks to draw medicine producers and biomedical translational researchers, while the one in Hsinchu focuses on developers of medical devices.
A call for applications from biotech businesses wanting to move into the Incubation Center in Nangang has been announced and many have expressed interest in joining the park, he said, without providing a timetable for business solicitation.
The park would become a “one-stop shop” for biotech firms, given that it has pooled resources from academia, the government and research agencies, he said.
Unlike the fast progress in the information and communication technology, new drug development often takes more than 10 years, as developers must conduct a series of clinical trials and pass approval procedures, he said.
Nonetheless, the institution aims to promote research and development related to biotechnology, he said.
“How the park will be operated and which [research and development] subjects should be tackled first” are questions that must be answered, Liu said.
“Nangang has always been regarded one of the most backward regions in Taipei,” Fan said. “Hopefully, after the park opens, it will become the city’s most advanced area.”
Beyond the restored wetland at the park, the 202nd Arsenal lies long disused on the other side of a wall.
The military has spotted two Chinese warships operating in waters near Penghu County in the Taiwan Strait and sent its own naval and air forces to monitor the vessels, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. Beijing sends warships and warplanes into the waters and skies around Taiwan on an almost daily basis, drawing condemnation from Taipei. While the ministry offers daily updates on the locations of Chinese military aircraft, it only rarely gives details of where Chinese warships are operating, generally only when it detects aircraft carriers, as happened last week. A Chinese destroyer and a frigate entered waters to the southwest
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
RSS