During a press conference to promote his new book Uni-President Enterprises Corp (
This is the second major loss for the highly touted Vita, as the firm's US partner, Celera Genomics, has also reportedly opted out of investing in the firm.
Uni-President is one of Taiwan's leading conglomerates and a major investor in biotechnology-related companies.
Kao cited investment overload as the reason for pulling back on the collaboration with Vita, saying his firm would use most of its funds this year to expand the production of instant noodles in China and set up new lines for milk and soy sauce.
Investments in biotechnology, he noted, generally take a long time to show a return. Since the company wants to move more aggressively into China, it needs to collect its resources for the China drive.
Due to this, Kao said his group would carefully evaluate further investments in non-food-related areas.
Vita Genomics is a Taiwanese company with investments from drug maker Ho Tung Chemical Corp (
Originally dubbed "Celera Asia," the company reportedly decided to maintain ties with Celera Genomics only with regard to Celera's huge database of genetic information and online research tools.
The company completed its first-stage capital increase of NT$1.75 billion (US$52.4 million) last month, half of its NT$3.5 billion (US$104.8 million) goal.
Vita said that Uni-President might take part in the second-stage capital increase later this year.
The biotech start-up confirmed that at least two enterprise groups have decided to join the second-stage investment, including Shin Kong Enterprise Group (
Vita plans to concentrate on researching nucleotides and studying the genetic sources of five to 10 cancer diseases that are prevalent in Asia such as liver, cervical and nasopharyngeal (nose) cancers.
The firm also plans to set up a databank of single nucleotideolymorphisms (SNPs) and provide software tools and an interface for browsing and searching this data.
Research results will be patented and licensed to other firms or used to develop new pharmaceuticals in cooperation with international drug companies.
Vita Genomics also plans to cooperate with domestic bio-chip makers to jointly develop diagnostic "bio-chips."
Vita president Ellsen Chen (
The company is scheduled to go public, in Taiwan or overseas, within the next five years.
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