Investments in Taiwan's biotechnology-related industry is expected to grow 15 percent to NT$25 billion this year, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
The growth is in line with the Cabinet's plan to attract a total of NT$100 billion investment in biotech between 2002 and 2007 and to double production output to NT$250 billion.
"Investment was boosted by a total of 91 new local and foreign investors in biotechnological medicine, medical equipment, agricultural technology, cosmetics and nanotechnology," Wang Shu-hui, (
According to Wang, the investment for the first 10 months of this year already climbed to NT$23.49 billion from NT$19.42 billion a year earlier.
Wang attributed the rapid growth to the establishment of several large biotechnology funds, including a NT$2.5 billion investment raised by a joint venture fund between China Development Financial Holding Corp (中華開發金控) and the Cabinet's Development Fund (開發基金). Another fund, Fortune Athena Biotech Fund (瑞銀生化基金), brought in NT$1.4 billion.
Other small and medium-sized investments, including NT$1 billion from ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd (台灣神隆) and NT$1 billion from state-run Taiwan Sugar Corp (Taisugar, 台糖), were made in the fields of medical research as well as cosmetics.
Several US biotech companies including Epicyte Pharmaceutical Inc, Genemed Biotechnologies Inc, Ancile Pharmaceuticals Inc and Corgentech Inc, have poured NT$3.07 billion into Taiwan's biotech industry in the last few years, according to Industrial Development Bureau.
Despite reportedly high growth in the sector, several pundits warned of serious hurdles blocking the road to Taiwan's biotech development.
The biggest problem, said John Yang (
Taisugar, a state-run enterprise, is allocating NT$20 million each year cooperative projects with Academia Sinica and the Biomedical Engineering Center at the Industrial Technology Research Institute (工研院).
"We are having difficulty transferring [their] innovations into concrete product ideas," he said.
Biologists have begun to encourage local biotech professionals to pool their findings with foreign firms to keep ahead of the technology race.
Chen Yih-ming (
Kuo Shu-shyang (郭書祥), professor of the Development Center for Biotechnology (生物技術開 發中心), said that Taiwan's burgeoning biotech businesses are already lagging behind other countries and only by cooperating with other international businesses can they skip the "learning phrase."
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