US pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co Inc plans to seek research partners in Taiwan and asked scientists to submit proposals to the company yesterday, but indicated traditional Chinese herbal medicines would face substantial scrutiny before any projects are accepted.
The head of external research programs at Merck Research Laboratories said his company had identified China and Taiwan in addition to Australia, India, South Korea, Israel and Russia as countries with favorable environments for joint development projects.
"Merck does not want to find merger partners. Our strategy is to find research partners," said Lewis Mandel, emeritus for external research and academic programs at Merck Research Laboratories.
He said between 98 percent to 99 percent of pharmaceutical research is conducted outside Merck Labs, and that merging with another pharma would lead to only negligible research gains.
As part of Merck's "Emerging Pharmaceutical Scientific Markets" strategy, Mandel came to Taiwan to discuss what kind of research projects his company finds most attractive. The company receives over 1,000 proposals each year and rejects around 95 percent of them, he said.
Merck has signed numerous agreements in the Asia Pacific, including 15 with companies in China, according to Mandel.
Mandel has been in Taiwan for four days, meeting with companies and getting to know more about what is going on -- in terms of research -- in the nation, but said, "no deals are going to be concluded."
"I am confident about the potential of the local industry based on what I've heard and what I've read," he said.
Mandel also poured cold water on one of the main thrusts of researchers in Taiwan: Searching for drug targets in traditional Chinese herbal remedies.
"I personally do not, nor does Merck, wish to become engaged again in extracting dirt, leaves, bark, roots, branches, and so on ... Rather, we would like the early work to be handled at this end ... We do not have and we will not mount another natural product discovery program. And by that I mean, we've had years of experience, not only with the Beijing Medical College, but also with the New York Botanical Garden and with the government of Costa Rica, trying to save a rain forest by trying to identify natural products from these sources. We have been 100 percent unsuccessful," he said.
Merck would be willing to work with companies who have already identified drug targets among herbs, he said.
To beef up research lab work and set it in the right direction, Mandel suggested companies add chemists to their labs in order to take advantage of any chemicals identified in herbal medicines that might be developed into a Western-style drug.
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