Vice Premier Tsai: Build a Friendly Environment for the Development of New Pharmaceuticals

        At the recent annual general meeting of the International Research-Based Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (IRPMA), Vice Premier Tsai Ing-Wen noted that the development of new pharmaceuticals is the focus of the global biotechnology industry and that Taiwan has listed biopharmaceuticals as one of its key industries for priority development. Biopharmacuticals are also included in the group of emerging strategic industries that are eligible for special incentives on the island. To strengthen transnational cooperation in the biotech industry, the government will invite biopharmaceutical enterprises to set up operations in Taiwan in order to bring in new know-how and technologies that will promote development and growth of the industry by supporting domestic enterprises. The government will also emulate the systems of advanced European and American countries by setting up a special project to carry out an overall review of the existing Statute for Upgrading Industries, Company Law, and regulations governing listing on the stock and over-the-counter markets with a view to accommodating the unique characteristics and needs of the biotech and pharmaceutical industries. This will help to establish a favorable environment that will attract investment from both domestic and foreign enterprises.

The vice premier pointed out that although Taiwan’s biotech industry is still in its incipient stage of development, in terms of the R&D investment, the number of patents granted, and the number of research papers being published, the island’s industry is performing remarkably well in comparison with Japan, Singapore, South Korea, India, China, and other Asian countries. Taiwan is an Asian leader in the number of clinical experiments carried out annually, at an average of more than 100; and most of these experiments are multi-country and multi-center in nature, indicating that the quality of experimentation in Taiwan has won international recognition. The domestic-demand market, though still small, is growing rapidly and consumption power for medical care is strong, with spending on medicines per capita far higher than in China, India, and other regional areas. This constitutes Taiwan’s comparative advantage in the development of the biopharmaceutical industry.

Tsai pointed out that Taiwan possesses outstanding clinical research and medical care systems, a high-quality, low-cost R&D and production environment, and a respect for and protection of intellectual property rights, among other advantages, and that these advantages offer Taiwan a good opportunity to develop into an ideal Asian partner for R&D cooperation in the international biomedical community. The government has poured about NT$55 billion into the biopharmaceutical industry since 2002, helping to bring its annual revenues to NT$160 billion today and a projected NT$320 billion in 2010.

In regard to the pricing of drugs by the health insurance system, the vice premier said that the government has carefully studied the suggestions submitted by all sectors. These include the establishment of a special team for the assessment of medical technology; the setting of drug payments that conform to national conditions; the establishment of a price-adjustment mechanism; the establishment of incentive measures for significant disease and for investment in the development of new drugs in Taiwan so as to stimulate the use of new technologies and new medicines; and the establishment of effective measures for the eradication of the drug-price differential.

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