Integrated strategy advisory committee for biotech to be established :: BiotechEast - Taiwan and China biotechnology, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, ^¤å½s×, ^¤å×§ï ::

(BiotechEast staff)

21 January, 2005
Acording to local media reports, Taiwan's Executive Yuan is planning to establish a biotech strategy advisory committee, in order to better integrate the country's many biotech-focused government bodies. The advisory committee will be responsible for Taiwan's biotech development strategy, the proportioning of resources, and the distribution of the NT$15 billion biotech-related budget allocated by the Exectutive Yuan each year.

Minister of State and co-convenor of the Executive Yuan's Science & Technology Advisory Group (STAG), Lin Ferng-ching, said the committee of 11 members will be established by the end of March of this year. The committee members will be composed of a combination of five overseas and six domestic experts who come from a variety of backgrounds including high-technology, management, law and finance.

In addition to the goal of greater integration across biotech-related government institutions, STAG plans to consolidate the relatively large number of national research projects focused on biotechnology. The group also said they hope to better reach their goal of becoming the Asian hub for biotechnology by investing more money and attracting better talent.

Lin pointed out the the total yearly government and private sector investment in biotech research and development in Taiwan is around NT$22 billion, a number about equal to that spent by a medium-sized pharmaceutical company overseas.

It will be one of the tasks of the newly-formed advisory committee to look into how to most effectively distribute this money, he concluded.

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