Looking at the great growth potential of Taiwan's bio-technology industry, Henri Lenferink, the mayor of Leiden, a city and municipality in the Dutch province of South Holland, led a delegation to Taiwan earlier, discussing cooperation opportunities with Taiwan Bio Industry Organization (TBIO) in the fields of bio-medical big data science, bio-medicine development, and genetic testing.
On another front, Bayer, a German multinational, pharmaceutical and life sciences company, and Novartis International AG, a Swiss pharmaceutical company based in Basel, will come to Taiwan continually to talk about details of their respective investments in the local biotech industry.
It is said that the investment projects of the two European companies will be focused on the same fields as the delegation from the Netherlands, but the details will not be revealed until investment meetings take place.
Both Bayer and Novartis have set branches for product import and sales in Taiwan; if Taiwan's bio-medical firms seize the chance to further deepen the partnership, Taiwanese biomedical industry will gain access to overseas market and create new business opportunities.
Also notable is that a group of Taiwanese biotech industry insiders led by Dr. Johnsee Lee, the chairman of TBIO, was headed to Belgium, Nederland, Switzerland, Germany and other European countries recently, to hold business cooperation meetings, in which over 50 local biotech companies in total participated to meet 14 firms and organizations and 21 individuals in the group from Taiwan; and the potential order value generated from the meetings is expected to exceed NT$100 billion (US$ 3.3billion).
It was also the first time for Taiwan's bio-medical industry to visit Europe. Lee pointed out that Nederland, Switzerland, and Belgium all intend to invest in R&D for big data, bio-medicine and genetic testing in Taiwan. And among so many European countries, the Netherlands showed the greatest interest in working with Taiwan bio industry.
