The three-day BTC conference concluded today. Dr. Pan-Chyr Yang, VP of IBMI and industry professionals offered to have provided 32 recommendations based on five directions.
The advice on creating a new venture for the use and application of biomedical big data was given by experts including Dr. Yang, Chairman Johnsee Lee of Quark Biosciences and Prof. Hong-Jen Chang at the Institute of Public Health, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University. The delivery through a build-operate-transfer model is anticipated to upscale Taiwan’s biomedical industry.
The industry’s voice has been well received, said Premier Chen Chien-jen. He will ask the Secretary General to convene and take action, which is welcomed by the industry and it hopes the government will see its commitment through as the Premier Chen reaffirmed.
This year's BTC conference invited 15 BTC members and 11 specialists from both domestic and overseas. The top-level recommendations have been drawn from five subjects: business, reimbursements & incentives, biomedical big data, intelligent healthcare, as well as international linkages. It was also raised in the conference that the U.S.-Taiwan Initiative on 21st-Century Trade shall incorporate the biomedical industry.
BTC experts also suggested a regulation-friendly business environment, namely the law making for regenerative medicine, Article 21 of the Medical Law and Article 45 of the National Health Insurance Act, allowing homegrown medical devices to be adopted by local hospitals more easily.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare has set out plans following BTC’s committee advise in 2022, which included parallel reviews, funds for new drugs, regulatory ‘sandbox’ and NHI ad-hoc reimbursement. The percentage of NHI can be increased to 8% of the GDP, Yang added.
In addition, chairman Lee has repeatedly advocated in public over the past three years that Taiwan should set up a venture for biomedical big data, and this year has once again gained the attention of BTC experts, who have called on the government to encourage the use of human biological data with explicit Informed Consent and de-identified medical and health data that meets public interest yet profit-making.
According to Yang, there are already more than a dozen biomedical big data companies in the world, among which the most famous one is TriNetX, and more than 10 medical centres in Taiwan, such as Taichung Veterans General Hospital and Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, have cooperated with the company. Prof. Chang explained the reason Taiwan not being able to create its own was due to regulatory challenges borne by the public sector to establish one from scratch.
