TAIPEI: The Bio Taiwan expo attracted 20 percent more exhibitors this year than last year, with some firms focusing on the emerging field of precision medicine, the event organizers said at a news conference yesterday.
About 630 companies are set to showcase their latest products and services during the event, to be held at the Taipei World Trade Center’s Nangang Exhibition Hall, from Wednesday next week through July 26, organizers said.
“This year’s focus is to be placed on capturing the potential opportunities of the Precision Medicine Initiative that was launched by US President Barack Obama in January,” Development Center for Biotechnology honorary chairman Johnsee Lee said.
The Precision Medicine Initiative is a research effort aimed at improving the efficiency of treatments by providing the information and tools to enable the provision of medical care customized to the needs of individual patients.
Bionet Group, best known for its cord blood bank business, unveiled a non-intrusive chromosome screening solution that can detect genetic predispositions to disease and facilitate early preventative measures.
Vita Genomics Inc , Taiwan’s largest genomics-based biotechnological and biopharmaceutical company, said that it is offering a one-stop solution for customized personal medical care.
Clients would undergo a variety of genomic analysis to determine an ideal treatment plan for diseases or to achieve the desired cosmetic results.
“We also hope to promote greater collaboration with the nation’s information technology sector,” Lee said.
The efforts of Taiwanese firms to develop botanical drug products are also on show at the Bio Taiwan expo.
Founded earlier this year by the DCB, the Botanical Drug Development Consortium has been joined by several companies and has more than 120 researchers and experts among its members.
Two of the consortium’s companies are scheduled to submit investigational new drug applications to the US Food and Drug Administration in February next year.
According to BCC Research, the global market for botanical drug products in 2012 was worth US$22.1 billion, and that figure is expected to grow to US$26.6 billion by 2017.
The consortium hopes to focus on the emerging field of botanical drug products by running clinical trials on Chinese medicinal products, so that the effectiveness of traditional treatments can be judged by mainstream science, it said.
