Taiwan has a good chance to play an important role in the biotechnology industry if the nation can effectively integrate its medical research infrastructure with its strengths in the electronics and information industries, an Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) official said in Taipei yesterday.
By doing so, it could attract international companies to set up bioinformatics research and development (R&D) centers in Taiwan, Hsieh Liang-han (謝良翰), general director of ITRI’s international business center told the Taipei Times yesterday.
“Taiwan’s strength lies in its information and communications technology [ICT] industry and basic research. I believe if the nation’s biotechnology industry can integrate with the ICT industry, it will begin to develop at a faster pace,” Hsieh said at the sidelines of the 2008 APEC Biotechnology Conference organized by the ITRI.
What Taiwan lacks now in the field of biotechnology is the “link” in the industry value chain, Hsieh said.
For example, Taiwan may be strong in the basic research of liver disease, but the local biotech industry is still in the development stage, Hsieh said.
Stanley Chang (張世忠), chairman of the Taipei-based Medigen Biotechnology Corp (基亞生物科技), who was invited to give a speech at the conference, agreed.
“Taiwan is strong in a couple of research topics in the world, with liver cancer being our strongest point. Integrating Taiwan’s precision equipment and biotechnology is a new direction that we can seriously consider,” Chang told the Taipei Times yesterday after his speech.
To attract international companies, such as the Switzerland-based pharmaceutical companies Novartis International AG and Roche Applied Science to set up their R&D centers in Taiwan, Hsieh said the government would have to first set up a few centers of excellence, such as in liver disease.
The conference took place at the Taipei International Convention Center yesterday, with “adding value to biomedical translational medicine” being its main theme. Hsieh said ITRI’s international business center would focus on linking the laboratory and the “patient’s bedside” this year — often referred to as “bench to bedside” — and encouraging transregional cooperation.
Biotech experts from seven foreign countries were invited by ITRI to share their experiences and national policies regarding translational medicine at the conference yesterday, in an effort to foster cross-regional interaction and translational medicine collaboration in the Asia-Pacific region.
ISSUES: Gogoro has been struggling with ballooning losses and was recently embroiled in alleged subsidy fraud, using Chinese-made components instead of locally made parts Gogoro Inc (睿能創意), the nation’s biggest electric scooter maker, yesterday said that its chairman and CEO Horace Luke (陸學森) has resigned amid chronic losses and probes into the company’s alleged involvement in subsidy fraud. The board of directors nominated Reuntex Group (潤泰集團) general counsel Tamon Tseng (曾夢達) as the company’s new chairman, Gogoro said in a statement. Ruentex is Gogoro’s biggest stakeholder. Gogoro Taiwan general manager Henry Chiang (姜家煒) is to serve as acting CEO during the interim period, the statement said. Luke’s departure came as a bombshell yesterday. As a company founder, he has played a key role in pushing for the
China has claimed a breakthrough in developing homegrown chipmaking equipment, an important step in overcoming US sanctions designed to thwart Beijing’s semiconductor goals. State-linked organizations are advised to use a new laser-based immersion lithography machine with a resolution of 65 nanometers or better, the Chinese Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) said in an announcement this month. Although the note does not specify the supplier, the spec marks a significant step up from the previous most advanced indigenous equipment — developed by Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment Group Co (SMEE, 上海微電子) — which stood at about 90 nanometers. MIIT’s claimed advances last
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
GLOBAL ECONOMY: Policymakers have a choice of a small 25 basis-point cut or a bold cut of 50 basis points, which would help the labor market, but might reignite inflation The US Federal Reserve is gearing up to announce its first interest rate cut in more than four years on Wednesday, with policymakers expected to debate how big a move to make less than two months before the US presidential election. Senior officials at the US central bank including Fed Chairman Jerome Powell have in recent weeks indicated that a rate cut is coming this month, as inflation eases toward the bank’s long-term target of two percent, and the labor market continues to cool. The Fed, which has a dual mandate from the US Congress to act independently to ensure
RSS