Taiwan Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Company (TBMC) is making significant strides on the international stage by forming strategic alliances with partners in the U.S. and Japan. TBMC announced partnerships with Japan's largest contract research organization (CRO), CMIC Bio, and U.S.-based Thermo Fisher Scientific. In addition, TBMC is collaborating with American company Resilience to further penetrate the global contract development and manufacturing organization (CDMO) market.
TBMC recently showcased its innovative technologies and laboratory achievements to the public. CEO David Chang announced the collaboration with CMIC Bio, aiming to enter the Japanese market through the CHO-C antibody production platform. TBMC is also partnering with Thermo Fisher Scientific to enhance advanced drug development and manufacturing technologies using Thermo Fisher's equipment, thereby offering high-quality services to global clients.
David Chang highlighted TBMC's primary advantage: its partnership with Resilience. This collaboration involves the transfer of Resilience's advanced biopharmaceutical manufacturing processes, including mRNA drugs, vaccines, cell therapies, gene therapies, and biologics. Currently, 11 TBMC employees are undergoing training at Resilience, which is fully sharing its operational expertise with TBMC.
The collaboration model between TBMC and Resilience is designed to leverage TBMC's strengths in "Development" (D) while Resilience focuses on "Manufacturing" (M). This approach aims to gradually enhance TBMC's commercial production capabilities.
According to TBMC's development timeline, their bioprocess development laboratory commenced operations in Nangang in June this year and has begun accepting orders from domestic and international clients. The GMP pilot plant in Zhubei is slated to start production in July next year. David Chang explained that TBMC's strategy is to first excel in the research and development phase to serve clients effectively before gradually moving to commercial production, a process that will take three to five years.
In addition to the partnerships with CMIC Bio and Thermo Fisher Scientific, TBMC also plans to collaborate with Academia Sinica to extend basic research to industrial applications. TBMC aims to form alliances with other domestic CDMO companies to compete internationally.
Regarding large-scale commercial production facilities, although TBMC plans to complete them by 2027, David Chang emphasized the need to carefully evaluate which areas—nucleic acid drugs, cell therapy, gene therapy, or biologics—show the most promise. "If there is a market, we will build (the production lines). We need to ensure the time to market is not too long to meet investor expectations."
David Chang noted that TBMC, although relatively new, already has clients in Taiwan and Japan and aims to secure U.S. clients by the end of this year. He mentioned that TBMC has plans for a public listing but will wait until the company's profit margins turn positive before proceeding.
Having lived abroad for nearly 40 years, David Chang graduated from National Taiwan University with a degree in chemical engineering and holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has served as the global head of engineering and strategy at Roche, worked at WuXi Advanced Therapies, and was a corporate vice president at Celgene, a pioneer in cell therapy. He is also an expert committee member of Taiwan's Biotechnology Industry Strategy Advisory Committee, providing policy advice annually.
Before accepting the CEO position at TBMC, David Chang spent two months in Taiwan to evaluate the job and the local environment. Confident in both, he and his wife moved from San Francisco to Taiwan for long-term residency.
David Chang believes that TBMC's development of CDMO services in the four areas of nucleic acid drugs, cell therapy, gene therapy, and biologics is crucial. Taiwan already has a solid foundation in biologics, but there is room for improvement. Apart from biologics, he sees great potential in nucleic acid drugs and cell therapy.
Nucleic acid drug technology is essential for Taiwan's development. The global COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of mRNA vaccines, a type of nucleic acid drug technology. David Chang predicts, "Another pandemic is inevitable, and the intervals will become shorter." Therefore, it is crucial for Taiwan to develop cancer drugs using nucleic acid technology and to have the capacity for large-scale vaccine production when needed.
For cell therapy, David Chang suggests focusing on rare diseases. Although gene therapy still faces safety and durability challenges, it is poised to become a significant treatment modality. He believes Taiwan can leverage its strengths to develop cost-effective products in these areas, especially given the high development costs faced by international companies.
Resource (mandarin): 台灣CDMO打國際盃 TBMC組美日戰略同盟建亞洲生產基地
