Developed by the Ministry of Economic Affairs and co-organised by the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) and the Development Center for Biotechnology (DCB), "Taiwan Bio-Manufacturing Corporation" was recently registered and established with the current total capital NT$6 billion. The first phase of the company is to build factories in Zhubei, aiming to production of mRNA vaccines, nucleic acid drugs, protein drugs and cell therapeutics.
After the 2020 outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, mRNA vaccine has become the main vaccine for global epidemic prevention. The public and private sectors have called for the establishment of Taiwan's own supply chain for mRNA vaccine, and the CDMO model has become a key focus of the government's efforts to promote the biomedical industry in the recent two years. The Ministry of Economic Affairs initiated a CDMO promotion programme last year in hopes of setting up a CDMO company in a four-year period, with a cost of NT$11 billion and public-private partnerships.
Taiwan Bio-Manufacturing Corporation, approved in May this year when the establishment of capital amounted to NT$150 million, to 2 August updated to NT$6 billion, and paid-in capital amounted to NT$750 million, the company registered chairman Michel Chu came from ITRI's spin-off company.
Chu said yesterday that Taiwan Bio-Manufacturing Corporation first put a price by ITRI and DCB, coupled with the government's fund to help establish the entity. The company still has to raise funds, and private enterprises must hold more than half of the shares before taking the company to operation. Chu emphasised that the government's aim in creating a national CDMO company is to create an mRNA production base that meets international standards, and also to have the capacity to produce other advanced medicines in order to achieve profitability, but the company will never compete with the private sector for profits.
It is expected that Taiwan Bio-Manufacturing Corporation, once the formal establishment of the first plant , will add mRNA vaccine, other nucleic acid drugs, protein drugs and cellular new drugs to its pipeline, and then with the expansion of the development project, will then seek to build the second factory. There is already an enterprise that expressed interest in private investment.
In addition to ITRI, the National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) and Academia Sinica are also developing mRNA vaccines, the two R&D institutes are building mRNA plants.
