Taiwan is to launch a NT$24 billion (US$757.5 million) pharmaceutical resilience plan to improve the nation’s self-sufficiency in key medicines, President William Lai (賴清德) told a meeting of the Healthy Taiwan Promotion Committee at the Presidential Office in Taipei yesterday.
The policy is a response to shifts in geopolitics and the global economy, climate change and the threat posed by pandemics, Lai said.
Securing supply chains for essential medicines as a matter of national security and economic well-being would be carried out under the Cabinet’s direction, he said, adding that securing supplies is part of Taiwan’s whole-of-society resilience plan.
Photo: Chen Chien-chih, Taipei Times
It would tackle the risks associated with dependency on single or concentrated suppliers, including suppliers based in hostile foreign powers, he said.
The government would push for domestic capability to manufacture 50 types of medicines, including ingredients used in their production and biologics, Lai said.
That would be achieved via a mixture of subsidies, incentives funded by the National Health Insurance scheme and guidance for the private sector, he said.
The goal is to make certain that Taiwan would be able to supply itself with key medicines in a national emergency or crisis, he said.
A center would be created to monitor drug supplies with smart technology to forewarn the government of possible shortages and advise it on measures to streamline medicine supply chains, he said.
The initiative would spur technology upgrades and growth in Taiwan’s pharmaceutical industry, increasing its value to NT$1 trillion, Lai said.
Medicine is a crucial component of Taiwan’s societal resilience, economic future and place in global supply chains, he said.
The US, the EU and Japan are in the process of implementing similar measures to ensure stable supply of key medicines, he said.
Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Lin Ching-yi (林靜儀) said that there are plans to bring a second national controlled drugs manufacturing facility online next year.
Launching a second factory for producing controlled substances is necessary to carry out the administration’s medical resilience plan, Lin said.
The ministry would also create a committee to steer the nation’s 31 producers of active ingredient and 143 medicine makers to use domestic ingredients, she said.
China and India produce 80 percent of the active ingredients in the world’s medicine supply, a system whose vulnerability was underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic, Lin said.
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