Event Information

Time: September 8, 2016 (Thursday)

Place: TRPMA Conference Room

Dr Chen Yuan-Tsong, Academician of Academia Sinica, was invited by the TRPMA to give a speech on the “international development of the biopharmaceutical technology and its trends”. Dr Chen pointed out that, currently, there are about 7,000 rare diseases; but, only 390 orphan drugs are available on the market. As the biotechnology advances quickly, more and more researchers embarked on the R&D of treatments for rare diseases. Investors have shown great interests in investing in the R&D of orphan drugs for their short-term endpoints and low costs. Dr Chen also pointed out that the number of biologics among the top 10 best-selling drugs has increased from 1 to 7, between 2005 and 2015. These global trends should be observed.

Dr Chen also predicted that the development of medical devices will advance towards precision medicine and smart medicine. Taiwan has excellent research capacity, a huge database holding the health and genetic information of 300,000 people and mature ICT industries. All of these serve a solid foundation for the development of precision medicine and smart medicine.

At the end of the speech, Dr Chen and the audience had an in-depth discussion about the challenges and future directions of the biopharmaceutical industry in Taiwan.