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國際招商大會--投資台灣，佈局全球
East and West, home is best
日期：2003年10月19日(星期日)至10月22日(星期三)
地點：台北國際會議中心
網址：http://www.investintaiwan.org.tw/chinese/index_c.html
聯亞生技開發董事長王長怡博士，於10月21日之 "生技與保健" 產業研討會中，提出美國UBI與聯亞生技開發的發展近況與前景，以及UBI於五年前投資台灣成立聯亞生技開發的原因。以下就是王博士所發表的 "The reasons to choose Taiwan: UBI Asia in partnership with UBI" 全文以及投影片簡報資料。
East and West, home is best
UBI is an international biopharmaceutical company with cutting edge technology. UBI corporate headquarters is located on Long Island, New York. Our operational divisions are UBI-China in Beijing and Shanghai. UBI Asia in Taiwan serves as our center of R&D for Asia, and also provides cGMP manufacturing facilities which position us for growth in Asian and global markets.
We at UBI are committed to treating and preventing diseases by directing the immune system.
We have combined elements of genomics and protein modeling information with our expertise in immunology, synthetic chemistry, vaccine formulation, and antibody engineering, to create our proprietary platform technologies in functional antigenics. The company has used these proprietary technologies to develop a new class of peptide-based immunodiagnostics, vaccines and immunotherapeutics, and monoclonal antibodies for both human and animal health.
We have used our unique technologies to develop a pipeline of blockbuster products for Alzheimer's Disease, Prostate Cancer, AIDS, and Allergy with over 120 patents issued in the US and worldwide, and over 40 scientific publications.
We have been awarded grants and product development sponsorship by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease and the National Cancer Institute, as well as the Department of Defense. This US government funding has supported process development and clinical trials for our vaccine and antibody immunotherapeutics for the prevention and treatment of AIDS that block HIV entry, and for our immunotherapeutic vaccine for Allergy through blocking a critical functional site on IgE, and for Prostate Cancer that blocks the master hormone LHRH.
We also have alliances with pharma partners in human and animal healthcare, including Baxter, BioMerieux (formerly Organon Teknika of AKZO Nobel), The United Laboratories, one of the top three pharmaceutical companies in China, Merial, a joint venture of Merck and Aventis and the largest animal health company in the world, and China Animal Husbandary Industries, the largest animal health company in China.
UBI-Asia in Taiwan and Synergy with UBI
With co-investment from the development fund of Executive Yuan and the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) of the Taiwan government, UBI was able to establish UBI-Asia, a Taiwan-based company, exactly five years ago. In 1999 and 2001, UBI-Asia acquired two international cGMP pharmaceutical manufacturing plants from Roche and GSK respectively, as its base for operations. With the cGMP system and framework provided by these facilities, UBI Asia is able to break through the barriers of process development, manufacturing, QC, and other product development related activities. These acquisitions break through what otherwise would have been a prolonged process in obtaining regulatory approvals for the commercial production of pharmaceuticals and our proprietary biologics products. For example, by a further strengthening of the operations' documentation system and by already having an internationally oriented corporate culture, we are able to rapidly set up for production of specialty injectable drugs under US FDA standards. Marketing of the products in North America will generate additional near term sales with significant bottom line profits to sustain a fully integrated company and fuel the development of our proprietary blockbuster products derived from our platform technologies. These are the type of synergies UBI and UBI Asia are constantly striving for.
These advantages allow UBI and UBI-Asia to operate with lower costs, and more rapid time to market, as well as creating stable revenue opportunities for both UBI Asia and UBI. Another example illustrating the cost effectiveness of our operations is that: with UBI and UBI Asia's management know-how in Biologics manufacturing requirements for US FDA approvals, such as documentation and validation systems, we were able to build a pilot multikilogram peptide manufacturing plant and a pilot monoclonal antibody manufacturing plant for the production of our key biological ingredients at a fraction of the cost to build in the Western world. Also, as our companies grow, UBI-Asia's engineering and manufacturing team stands ready to assist in the establishment of even more facilities as the needs arise.
Aided by easy access to information technologies during this age of "business at the speed of thought," we have benefited from the 12-hour time difference between New York and Taipei. It has given us a highly efficient around-the-clock mode of operations.
From an R&D point of view, the BioR&D team we built at UBI Asia has also demonstrated capabilities beyond our expectations. UBI-Asia received several exclusive product licenses from UBI that have great market potential in this part of the world. These include foot-and-mouth disease related products and LHRH vaccines for swine. These products will shortly receive regulatory approvals and for marketing in both Taiwan and China. China, with 450 million pigs per year turnover, is the world's largest market for swine healthcare. The pivotal swine study for the development of UBI's vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) was conducted by UBI-Asia in collaboration with Taiwan's Pig Research Institute, now called Animal Technology Institute or ATIT, and Taiwan's National Animal Health Research Institute. The results of that study were published in the journal Vaccine, and became widely known in the field. That report and follow-up studies are leading to the first ever commercialization of a peptide-based vaccine for FMD.
Our state-of-the-art FMDV diagnostic tests, capable of differentiating infected from vaccinated animals, have been validated extensively through the collaboration between UBI Asia, and the two above mentioned institutes. Taiwan leads the world in the use of such tests to survey its pig population for the prevention and monitoring of FMDV status in the island. The scientific data generated through the close UBI Asia and government sponsored collaboration was submitted to the OIE for review. The OIE is the international organization for the regulation of trade in livestock and livestock products. The Taiwan report to the OIE has led to a change in the world's decades-old FMDV management system and led to OIE's May 22nd declaration of Taiwan as the first country in the world to be an FMD free country in the presence of FMDV vaccination.
Again, I want to emphasize that this revolutionary change in international foot-and-mouth disease management was the result of the close collaboration between UBI, UBI Asia, ATIT and Taiwan government. Now other countries like Paraguay, Brazil and China are following suit.
Taiwan suffered a major economic set back when FMD broke out in 1997. We at UBI responded immediately. We applied our platform technologies to FMD and initiated the developments of our peptide-based diagnostic and vaccine products for FMD, and began our collaboration in Taiwan.
Our platform capability and desire to help Taiwan government to recover from this set back was also one of the triggers for the establishment of UBI Asia.
UBI, UBI Asia and Taiwan see our contributions of peptide based diagnostics and vaccines as the way for the world to adopt new and more advanced methods of FMD control and would see complete replacement of traditional lysate vaccines within 5 years.
There are three applications employing different formulations of our LHRH immunotherapeutic vaccine product, all based on the mechanism of immunological castration. They are (1) boar taint removal and growth promotion in boars and gilts for swine, (2) pet contraception for dogs, and (3) androgen deprivation treatment for prostate cancer in humans. In the animal application for boar taint removal, our animal health partner Merial demonstrated 100% efficacy with our vaccine to achieve immunological castration in over 1000 swine, and UBI Asia was the first to demonstrate the castration using our vaccine in Cattle. Just look at the difference in size of the testes of the two animals shown on the slide. Key analyses for the economic benefit of UBI's LHRH vaccine for growth promotion and prevention of boar taint in swine were also conducted in Taiwan, in collaboration with ATIT. Thus, UBI and UBI-Asia both benefit from our central location in Taiwan that provides access to unique scientific resources and mass markets, for the launch of our major proprietary products.
UBI-Asia also has been the beneficiary of support and grants from Taiwan government programs such as the Industrial Technology Development Program of MOEA. A major Industrial Technology Development Program grant has enabled UBI Asia to setup the first GMP production plant in Taiwan dedicated to the manufacture of engineered monoclonal antibodies. This facility will allow UBI-Asia to commercialize its platform technology for human therapeutic monoclonal antibodies based on antibody deimmunization. The UBI-Asia monoclonal antibody for the treatment of HARRT resistant AIDS patient through entry inhibition has already received recognition and support from the US government. The AIDS division of NIH is providing for production of the clinical trial lot of this therapeutic antibody and for clinical trials in the US. The US FDA has designated such entry inhibitor products for accelerated approval for the treatment of AIDS patient with drug-resistant viruses.
The young scientists of UBI Asia's BioR&D team are the foundation for this success. It was they who successfully established the technology platform for development and manufacturing of deimmunized therapeutic monoclonal antibodies with performance beyond our expectation.
UBI-Asia presently earns steady revenues from our cGMP manufacturing operations. Through OEM contracts with Roche, Pfizer, Novartis, GSK, and others, UBI-Asia accounts for a significant portion of the total foreign medicines produced in Taiwan. As already discussed earlier, we are expanding into specialty injectable drugs for North American markets to further utilize the earning capability of our manufacturing facilities. UBI Asia R&D team also collaborates with multiple research institutes in Taiwan.
With superb world-class production facilities, a highly qualified R&D team, and an experienced management team, we expect UBI-Asia to become a premier provider of innovative biologics and pharmaceuticals in this part of the world. With its international relationships, UBI-Asia's unique products will be expanding into global markets. UBI-Asia has become the strategic center in Asia for the UBI group.
Reasons to choose Taiwan:
1. The Taiwan government promotes high-tech industry and the requisite human capital as an important base for the support of continued economic growth. This has been shown by the successful record of the semiconductor, information technology, telecommunication, and electronic industry sectors in Taiwan over the past decade. The paradigm shift from Silicon Valley to ShinJu science park occurred more than a decade ago for electronics and IT, and it may happen again for biotech. The health care and biotechnology industries will be the next source of high tech-driven economic growth and Taiwan is well positioned to participate in this biotech boom. The abundant supply of technically trained and diligent people is one of the reasons for the success of the electronic high tech industries in Taiwan. Government policy is operating to repeat this trend in the life sciences. Taiwan government has encouraged the establishment of many life science-related educational centers, graduate schools, academic institutes and business incubators. This has fostered the creation of an abundant supply of well-qualified biotech scientists, technicians, and entrepreneurs. This newly created human capital has positioned Taiwan to mount a major push in the BioPharma arena.
2. Taiwan biotech provides exceptional opportunities for win-win business partnerships between Taiwan firms and international companies. For example, UBI and its subsidiary UBI Asia, have developed a synergistic partnership where the complementary strengths and expertise of the companies create a solid, cost effective, and highly innovative organization.
3. Taiwan is located in a strategically important position in Pacific Asia. It enjoys advantageous geographical and cultural positions for access to the enormous PRC market. Due to Taiwan's bilingual practice for international trade and extensive connections to the western world it is also ideally positioned as a cost effective base for launching into global markets.
4. Already in place in Taiwan] are research institutes and biotech companies prepared to carry out all stages of biotech/biopharma development, from basic research, to pre-clinical and clinical studies, to biomedical production. For small and medium sized international biotech companies such as UBI, it’s a great place to accelerate product development efforts by effectively utilizing this local expertise.
5. There are diverse advantages for investment in the biotech/biopharmaceutical industry in Taiwan including cost effectiveness in operations, easy access to first hand global business information, modern communications and internet infrastructure, and the respect and protection of intellectual property. The domestic market can be used as a training and testing ground for people and businesses. The Taiwan government provides many tax incentives, R&D grants, co-investment incentives, and an established "one-stop shopping" organization to promote the industry. ROC in Taiwan provides an attractive environment for investment in the high tech industry that is now uniquely applicable to the BioPharma industry. Few other countries can match it.
"East and West, home is best". For those of us born and raised in Taiwan who went to the Western world to pursue higher education, to explore academic excellence on a world stage, to achieve global, industrial and entrepreneurial experience, the time is right for us now to open up operations at home.
In summary, Taiwan is the place to establish BioPharma firms with international links, to create synergistic alliances and to achieve win-win business relationships. Taiwan has government policies to promote biotechnology industry. It also has diligent, entrepreneurial, and well-educated human resources. Operations can be cost effective. It is a place where fast breaking first hand business information can be easily accessed. It offers access to the huge China market due to similarity in culture and background, and to markets worldwide due to its extensive connections to the western world. Join us, and welcome to Taiwan!