Singapore, Jan 1, 2008: Founded in 1973, the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) is a primary R&D center for industry in Taiwan. Back then, there were very few high-tech industries in Taiwan. Today, Taiwan is known for its ICT industries. ITRI has played a significant role in this transformation. In an e-mail interview with BioSpectrum Dr Chung-Cheng Liu, who recently took charge as the Vice President and General Director of Biomedical Engineering Research Laboratories (BEL), shares his views about the initiatives taken by ITRI in promoting and supporting the upcoming biotech industry in Taiwan.

What initiatives ITRI has taken to promote biotechnology in Taiwan?
ITRI’s key strength is its capability in various engineering disciplines such as electronics, chemical and material science, machinery and automation.  Since its inception in 1999, Biomedical Engineering Center (split into Biomedical Engineering Research Lab and Medical Electronics & Device Technology Center in 2005) has positioned itself in leveraging these capabilities to develop biomedical innovations.  Examples are medical devices from electronics, bio-informatics for genomics applications, and chemical and materials for drug development and drug delivery technologies. Over the past eight years, several advancements such as gene chip arraying technology, proteomics and genomics, novel scaffold for protein therapeutics & applications, novel delivery technology have been made, besides moving two herbal derived chemicals into US FDA IND process. A framework also has been established to integrate distributive care in community-based healthcare that could promote the development of home-care medical devices. All these advancements will be further integrated into innovations for the expected arrival of new health care paradigm—a perspective health care system.

What strengths of Taiwan in biotechnology space make it different from other Asia Pacific countries as far as attracting investors is concerned?
There are four major elements of achieving success in biotechnology business: project, people, money, and infrastructure/culture. People and project are considered most important. We also know that it takes good people to select or develop a good project.  Good people are the single most important element if one follows the above argument.  One of the key strengths of Taiwan is people, especially the skilled ones who have worked in major Western pharmaceutical and biotech organizations.  Taiwan also has abundant capital though the deployment is not adequate. However, Taiwan enjoys strong governmental support in the biotech sector to compensate the lack of private sector participation. Very few places in the world have these kinds of advantages. What Taiwan needs is clearly articulated ambition among all the things it can do yet with relatively little resource when compared to its western rivals.

ITRI has opened offices in Russia, Japan, Germany and the US. Considering the market potential and opportunity in countries like Australia, Singapore, India and China do you have any plans of opening any offices in these or any other countries which you feel make a difference for Taiwan?
ITRI is in R&D business. We operate offices in Russia, Japan, Germany and the US because those areas provided abundant sources for technological innovations for us to leverage in the past. As the world evolves, there will be new centers of technological innovations established. We will continue to look for new places that provide invaluable innovations that we can leverage to make advancement and to make a difference for Taiwan.

Taiwan is known for its manufacturing IT hardware. What are the initiatives or projects initiated by ITRI to establish a linkage between this sector with that of the biotechnology?
Areas of biotechnology where IT hardware can link up more easily are medical device and bio-informatics. Pharmaceutical manufacturing is another area that can leverage IT innovation but Taiwan does not have a strong base for pharma manufacturing at present. Not surprisingly, ITRI’s strong initiatives are in the medical devices developments and bio-informatics. The early results consist of our concerted efforts in establishing the biochip industry in Taiwan and progress in genomics, proteomics and micro RNA research. The framework to establish distributive care model in a community-based healthcare system which could promote the development of home-care medical devices could provide a hot-bed for local IT hardware manufacturing firms to move into the biotech business easily. For examples, ITRI has cooperated with Mackay Memorial Hospital and Farglory Realty to build the platform for telehealth care and home-care. In addition, ITRI has also focused on human-machine interactive interfaces by using the concept of “enjoyable technology” in order to provide a user-friendly devices in an aging society.

In biomedical technology space, one of the six identified areas of research initiatives of ITRI, how much investments have been made so far in different
projects?
We all know that biotechnology is a very capital intensive and high risk business but with high return—if it is successful. On the other hand, its success cannot be guaranteed with large sum of money because of its complexity and unpredictability. At ITRI, we spend roughly 10 percent of our resources in biotech sector and will increase over time. The allocation of resource to different areas of biotech research is kept in a more dynamic fashion depending on progress in risk reduction and is reviewed frequently to make sure needed resource is provided timely. We think the resource allocation process needs to be different from the previously used model in ITRI’s earlier efforts to establish Taiwan’s IT manufacturing industry since we can use the budget in a flexible way compared with traditional IT industry. We don’t know what the perfect model is and are learning it as we go along.

In addition to real budget, ITRI has also promoted a new idea that any employee can use 10 percent of their working hours to do some innovative projects after permission by the committee.

How does ITRI plan to promote biotechnology in Taiwan and in the global market?
Because of its demand for large capital, all countries in the world developing biotech business have global market as the target and Taiwan is no exception. As mentioned, the biotech sector in Taiwan enjoys strong support from government, has good supply of seasoned professional, good IT hardware manufacturing base, but is lacking a clearly articulated ambition. With good vision and planning in the beginning and hard work of its people coupled with strong support from Ministry of Economic affairs over the past eight years, ITRI has targeted several specific projects/technologies that will change the way healthcare is done or practiced in the future if they are successful. These include a novel platform where an antibody drug can be re-engineered to provide a better one, a world leading content of small RNA sequences where new potential drugs and biology can be discovered as well as providing the tools to discover them, and a framework to integrate distributive care in a community-based health care system which could promote the development of home-care medical devices after it is fully integrated with the clinical environment and living community in Taiwan. We are not there yet, but we are very excited about the future we are creating.