Pan-Chyr Yang, Vice President of the Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry (IBMI) and Chief Judge of the National Innovation Award, stated that the award aims to spotlight technologies with commercial potential. Over the past five years, through the "Medical Innovation Demo Day" fundraising platform, 18 teams have successfully raised a total of NT$5.02 billion, attracting investment from 24 major venture capital firms and tech companies.
The largest funding case among them is SYNCELL, a biotech company spun off from Academia Sinica four years ago. Starting from scratch, the team raised nearly NT$1 billion and successfully launched its micro-light marker targeting device in the international market. With capital injection, teams funded through Demo Day have achieved significant milestones in research and development, licensing, and market expansion. These include nine domestic and international certifications, three successful licensing deals or acquisitions, and six companies penetrating global markets.
Yang highlighted that 15 years ago, the National Innovation Award began focusing on the most challenging early-stage academic, research, and clinical innovations. It helps make technologies with commercialization potential understood, visible, and supported by capital for entrepreneurship. To date, the award has evaluated over 2,800 technologies, leading to the successful creation of 178 companies from academic and biomedical sectors, with a total capital exceeding NT$23.8 billion. Among them, one-third have capital exceeding NT$100 million, and 16 companies have reached over NT$500 million.
As a highly recognized accolade, the National Innovation Award, through the expertise of professional judges across various fields—including government agencies, medical institutions, research, industry, venture capital, intellectual property, and finance—has illuminated Taiwan's biomedical innovation teams. For the 2024 awards, 85 judges evaluated the submissions. This year's entries reached a three-year high, with the corporate innovation category seeing the largest number of participants. Among the 196 winning teams, biotech and pharmaceutical precision medicine technologies accounted for the largest proportion at 22%, followed by smart healthcare and health technologies at 15%, and innovative medical devices and diagnostic technologies at 13%.
Yang further noted that the biomedical sector's fundraising amounts have continued to grow in recent years. Over the past two years, the total funds raised through public listings have approached NT$70 billion, with an annual average of NT$35 billion, steadily increasing international visibility. In December 2024, IBMI will host the "MedTex Summit Asia," an international fundraising collaboration platform. The summit will invite over 20 global venture capital firms and overseas unicorn startups to Taiwan to connect with benchmark companies from the National Innovation Award, facilitating global capital cooperation. In 2025, the focus will remain on driving more exemplary startups into international capital networks and expanding opportunities for overseas development.
Resource: 生策會副會長楊泮池：Demo Day搭橋 18團隊募逾50億
