National Cheng Kung University (NCKU), Taiwan signed a MOU with ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd. on Nov. 24th. The NCKU President, Academician Michael M.C. Lai, attended together with Prof. Chyi-Her Lin, the Dean of the College of Medicine, Prof. Pin-Wen Lin, the Superintendent of the NCKU Hospital, Prof. Ih-Jen Su, the Deputy Superintendents of the NCKU Hospital, Prof. Ming-Jer Tang, the Vice President of Academic Affairs, Prof. Jung-Chun Huang, the Associate Vice President for R&D, Prof. Yung-Nane Yang, the Associate Vice President for R&D and the Division Head of University Development, and Distinguished Professor Shu-Hui Chen from Institute of Bioinformatics.
Dr. Jo Shen, the President and CEO of ScinoPharm Taiwan, also attended together with Dr. Hardy W. Chan, the Executive Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer of ScinoPharm Taiwan and the President of ScinoPharm Biotech and ScinoPharm Kunshan, China, Dr. Kuo-Hsi Cheng, the Vice President for Operations, Ms. Jessie Wang, the Director of Human Resource and Public Relationship, Ms. Min-Ling Cheng, Corporate Development Project manger, and Ms. Sabrina Wu, the Corporate Communications Manager.
According to the MOU, NCKU and ScinoPharm, Taiwan, both agree to encourage and promote cooperation in developing novel therapeutic agents and enabling technologies, as well as building competitive advantage in the knowledge-based industries in the greater China region and other territories. Moreover, they will also facilitate the relevant training of team members which are needed for the projects through exchanges of personnel on a mutually beneficial basis, and will explore opportunities for cooperation in any other areas of mutual interests.
“This is a good start between NCKU and ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd. I hope to establish the university-industry cooperation and make a big breakthrough on the development of biotechnology industry in the future, which is one of the key industries for the future as declared by the Executive Yuan,” said President Lai.
Biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry has been developed for 20 years, and has especially made a big progress in the past 10 years. It is also one of the six emerging industries specially selected by the Executive Yuan for intensive development. Universities and higher education in Taiwan have produced many graduates with related majors every year. However, the unemployment rate is relatively the highest in biotechnology industry, compared to the other industries. Obviously, students’ trainings in universities could not fit into the demand of this industry. On the other hand, Taiwan has relatively succeeded in the upstream R&D of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. However, the fruitful R&D outcomes from the upstream could not be smoothly transferred to the downstream production in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Almost all scientists in the upstream R&D were trained from universities and did not learn corporate management in colleges, which led to miscommunication between the upstream R&D and the downstream production, and eventually the misfortune of the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. There is a common saying that the successful industries are almost those without any scientists’ involvement. Scientist did not know how to organize and operate the industry. This has posted quite a difficult task in Taiwan, especially in biotechnology area. Therefore, President Lai appreciated and praised that NCKU had the opportunity to collaborate with ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd, which is considered as the top of Taiwan’s biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.
“To be honest, without the cultivation and assistance of NCKU, there would be no ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd today,” said Dr. Jo Shen. She appreciated the contribution and kind help of NCKU. There are so many employees from NCKU. Even more, the first two laboratories of ScinoPharm Taiwan were in the Chemical Engineering Buildings of NCKU. That is, the first-day-at-work of ScinoPharm’s senior employees in the company was indeed at NCKU. “NCKU has the opportunity to become the first biosimilar clinical center over the world. Both of us hope to establish the collaborative relationship in the exchange of students, education, and R&D. We also sincerely hope to have much closer relationship with NCKU especially in proteinomics and R&D in protein drugs,” said Dr. Jo Shen.
ScinoPharm Taiwan Ltd has the developmental technology with two more positions due to the coming of biosimilars. One is the productive equipment, and another is the biosimilar clinical center. The second one is very important for the industry line and needs to collaborate with NCKU through the standard operating procedure (SOP). “We hope that NCKU will lead the biotechnology industry over the top one around the world through the collaboration,” said Dr. Jo Shen.
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