Taiwan Fertilizer (
The company plans to invest more than NT$100 million to develop health food products, Donald Chien (
"We will focus on developing functional [health] food products that are produced by fermentation," said Chien. The company already has 10 years experience in fermentation technology, he added.
Taifertilizer's first foray into the health food market will be through a joint venture with Purzer Pharmaceuticals (
Purzer is currently the island's sixth largest pharmaceuticals firm based on sales, according to IMS, an international market research company specializing in research on pharmaceutical companies.
According to both Chien and Chang Hsiu-ji (31-*績), vice president of Purzer, Taiwan Fertilizer is also considering investing in Purzer.
Under the alliance, Taiwan Fertilizer will produce raw materials for lacto bacillus and give it to Purzer to produce the co-branded final product. The company plans to develop a number of health food products using this model, according to Chien.
"We chose Purzer as our partner partly because it has a GMP certified factory. To set up a production facility for the production of final products requires huge capital, so we are not considering setting up a factory now," said Chien. Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) is a set of government regulations governing the minimum standards for manufacturing factory-wide.
When asked how Taiwan Fertilizer is going to compete with other large companies that are also producing health food products such as Taiwan Sugar and Standard Chem. & Pharm, Chien said that Taiwan Fertilizer has abundant capital and strong determination.
Chang said that Taiwan Fertilizer is the first company Purzer has formed a partnership with. "The company has a healthy financial structure," he said. "With the impending implementation of cGMP, many pharmaceutical firms will probably start seeking partnerships with other firms."
Current GMP (cGMP) is a new standardization procedure applied to individual products, rather than the output of a factory as a whole as is the case with GMP.
According to Chang, after the implementation of cGMP, production costs for pharmaceutical and health food products will increase because each manufacturing procedure will have to be examined more carefully.
"Companies may give up producing products that have a small market and ask other companies to produce for them," said Chang.
Taiwan Fertilizer has been trying to diversify its business into high-tech industries, including both the biotech and semi-conductor industries. The company announced earlier this year that it plans to build a 23,000 square-meter biotech and pharmaceutical development center in Hsichih, suburban Taipei, for the production of diagnostic agents, vaccines, and collagen.
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