Biotechnology has long been a strategic priority for Taiwan’s economic development, standing alongside ICT and semiconductors as a key pillar of growth for the island. Driven by a highly educated scientific workforce and competitive development costs, Taiwan is a natural hub for early-phase drug development and initial manufacturing. However, only in recent years has the sector truly come into its own and begun delivering on its full potential.
“Taiwanese biotechnology began taking shape in the early 2000s, when the government first promoted the sector as a strategic complement to the semiconductor industry,” notes Jeng Her, founder and CEO of AP Biosciences, a domestic clinical-stage biotech specialising in developing bispecific antibodies and next-generation immunotherapy treatments. “Over the years, local entrepreneurs launched ventures in diagnostics, reagents, and services, though few initially pursued innovative drug development. Those early pioneers – many of them professionals returning from the US or Europe – laid the crucial groundwork for the ecosystem we see today.”
“Taiwan’s biotech journey reflects five decades of strategic continuity, evolving from public health imperatives to a comprehensive innovation strategy that unites science, technology, and care delivery,” agrees Wallace Lin, secretary-general of Taiwan Bio Industry Organisation (Taiwan BIO). “Today’s ‘Healthy Taiwan’ initiative crystallises this maturity, transforming a manufacturing-heavy and medtech-weighted model into a forward-looking, preventive, and knowledge-driven healthcare ecosystem,” he continues. “The sector has officially moved past its nursery stage, come of age, and now serves as a critical pillar underpinning our broader innovation ecosystem.”
Fully Fledged Ecosystem
None of this occurred by chance. Instead, it is the fruit of years of diligent, systematic ecosystem building. “Taiwan had already built world-class ICT and semiconductor industries in our science parks, but biopharmaceutical development lagged behind. So, we took a three-pronged approach: infrastructure, incentives, and talent,” recounts Chen Chien-jen, ex-minister of health and welfare, former Taiwanese vice president, and incoming president of Academia Sinica.
First, the administration established dedicated biomedical science parks, creating clusters where start-ups could thrive. Second, they enacted the Pharmaceutical Development Act in 2007 – extending it for another decade in 2017 – to provide meaningful incentives for investors. Third, they passed legislation allowing university scientists to serve as CEOs or senior advisors to start-ups, encouraging translational research. “Previously, this was discouraged,” Chen recalls. “We simultaneously introduced ‘gold cards’ for foreign talent – offering permanent residence after just two years – to address the persistent shortage of hardcore biomedical expertise.”
This push was accompanied by a major initiative to raise the island’s profile as a world-class clinical trials destination through the formation of the Clinical Trial Consortium Taiwan. “Looking back, it’s fair to say this was a watershed moment that transformed our landscape,” Chen notes, highlighting a dramatic increase in physician-initiated Phase I oncology trials, as well as Phase II and Phase III studies. “We now train physicians to lead multinational trials, positioning Taiwan as a regional hub for Asian populations. The economics help considerably – our lower operating costs make trials more affordable than in Japan, the EU, or the US, while maintaining top-notch infrastructure and expertise.”
Taipei Medical University (TMU) is giving that ambition concrete form. Under President Mai-Szu Wu, the university has unified seven affiliated institutions and more than 3,000 beds into a single interoperable data platform, and helped establish the Taiwan Alliance of Clinical Trial Centers — a 32-institution network operating under a unified protocol and single Institutional Review Board. “We opened the first site around Chinese New Year 2025 and within a year achieved recruitment levels previously deemed nearly impossible,” Wu notes.
The island’s life science regulatory credentials have also advanced in leaps and bounds. Although geopolitical complexities prevent Taiwan from acceding to the World Health Organisation (WHO), its life sciences regulator, the Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA), plays an increasingly active and respected role in the global regulatory community. This is achieved through a broad network of partnerships, including its roles as a Participating Authority of the Pharmaceutical Inspection Co-operation Scheme (PIC/S), a Regulatory Member of the International Council for Harmonisation (ICH), an Associate Member of the International Coalition of Medicines Regulatory Authorities (ICMRA), and an Affiliate Member of the International Medical Device Regulators Forum (IMDRF).
“Together, these memberships reinforce our commitment to harmonised, science-based regulation and mutual reliance among trusted authorities. Even where formal participation is restricted, we focus on substance rather than status, ensuring that our frameworks remain transparent, evidence-based, and interoperable. This practical approach allows the TFDA’s regulatory decisions to be recognised internationally through reliance and cooperation mechanisms,” confirms Chih-Kang Chiang, the TFDA’s director-general.
On top of that, Taiwan’s fast-maturing biotech scene leverages multiple structural advantages honed over decades. “Today’s domestic biotechs and international entrants can call upon a dense and capable hospital network that supports clinical research and trials. Combined with a healthcare system that delivers high-quality care efficiently, this creates an environment that supports the entire development chain – from identifying unmet medical needs to executing clinical studies,” enthuses Shiing-Jer Twu, chairman of the Development Center for Biotechnology (DCB), a body under the Ministry of Economic Affairs tasked with applying ‘semiconductor-style’ discipline to the sector.
“More broadly, Taiwan’s national health data infrastructure is a significant strategic asset,” argues Tsai-Kun Li, the DCB’s president. He points out that long-term, population-wide health data provides a strong foundation for applying AI and data science to healthcare and biomedical research. “When combined with platform-based development approaches, similar in principle to those used in mRNA technologies, this can meaningfully shorten development timelines. That combination of data, platforms, and execution capability underpins Taiwan’s attractiveness as a partner in a highly competitive global landscape,” he affirms.
All of this collective action and fully fledged enabling infrastructure is tremendously important, notes Steve Kuo, chairman of the Taiwan Research-based Biopharmaceutical Manufacturers Association (TRPMA). “Without it, Taiwan’s budding biotechs would risk replicating the pattern of isolated, competitive individual efforts common in the West, rather than following in the footsteps of other Taiwanese industry sectors like semiconductors that became so formidable on the global stage.”
“The real secret behind our national success stories has been leveraging interconnected ecosystems. Collectively, we are much stronger than the sum of our individual parts. That means bringing everyone together and establishing fully fledged supporting networks composed of companies that know each other, trust each other, and are ready to collaborate in building something of lasting significance,” he opines.
DCB’s Twu echoes that sentiment. “We do our best to encourage closer coordination across research, development, manufacturing, and regulation, almost as if the country were operating as a single organisation. Taiwan’s geographic compactness makes this possible, with major research centres, hospitals, regulators, and industry clusters connected within short travel times. By all pulling together in a coordinated fashion, our industry will wield the biggest impact,” he declares.
Structural Constraints
Despite its progress, market insiders readily acknowledge that Taiwan’s biotechnology sector faces deep-seated structural limitations. Sooner or later, local companies inevitably collide with these barriers and must find creative ways to overcome them.
“Taiwanese life science entrepreneurs face an inherent constraint: population size,” notes Der-Yang Cho, superintendent and professor of neurosurgery at China Medical University Hospital (CMUH). “An originator drug developer cannot survive on our domestic market alone. This reality forces an international perspective. Innovation must be designed with global validation and cross-border collaboration in mind from day one – including licensing, co-development, and overseas clinical trials, especially for advanced platforms like cell therapy and exosome-based delivery.”
Pharmosa Biopharm Inc. (PBI), a Taipei-based clinical-stage biotech specialising in liposomal formulations offers a clear case in point. “From the outset, our ambition has been to develop medicines that reach patients worldwide by working with partners who understand the clinical, regulatory, and commercial realities of each market,” says the company’s president, Pei Kan. “That global perspective needs to be embedded early in development rather than layered on later to stand any real chance of success.”
Compounding this geographic limitation are Taiwan’s unique geopolitical realities. While the TFDA has made immense progress harmonising its evaluation systems with international standards – particularly the US FDA – to make regulatory pathways more predictable, hurdles with mutual recognition and reciprocity remain. For instance, Taiwan is open to international data, but other countries do not always return the favour.
“Regulatory reliance in Taiwan today operates mainly through bilateral cooperation mechanisms rather than formal mutual recognition,” observes Jaw-Jou Kang, a professor at National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University (NYCU), former head of the TFDA, and current chair of the Taiwan Society of Regulatory Affairs for Medicinal Products. “Presently, we maintain mutual regulatory cooperation with the UK and partial recognition frameworks with Japan. However, asymmetries persist. Japan expects us to recognise their clinical trial data and bioavailability and bioequivalence studies, yet they decline to reciprocally recognise studies conducted in Taiwan. Japanese regulations invariably mandate domestic study replication. Consequently, Taiwan maintains considerable openness toward international submissions but receives limited reciprocal acceptance. Furthermore, the US FDA’s Project Orbis remains out of reach.”
Financing can present another steep hurdle. A decade ago, Taiwan’s ecosystem was notoriously challenging for novel drug development. Venture capital overwhelmingly favoured medical device investments, which generate revenue relatively quickly, whereas drug development requires ten to twenty years before producing meaningful returns. “This temporal mismatch created substantial funding difficulties,” recalls Chiu-Heng Chen, CEO of LaunXP Biomedical, a Taiwanese outfit experimenting with virus-like particles (VLPs), nano-formulations, and transdermal microneedle patches designed to embed microscopic needles into a patch for highly localised cancer drug administration. “Initially, life science entrepreneurs relied primarily on angel investors – specifically, medical doctors and university professors who understood the underlying science well enough to invest based on long-term potential rather than near-term returns. While helpful, this capital base was constrained,” remembers Chen, who was himself diagnosed with cancer during his doctoral studies in the UK; an experience that directly shaped his decision to found an oncology-focused biotech upon returning to Taiwan.
Even today, Taiwanese biotech companies typically operate with modest capitalisations – often between USD 100 million and 300 million. “When programs advance to clinical trials and capital requirements intensify, our capital bases frequently prove insufficient to support optimal timelines,” Chen continues. This underfunding slows down clinical trials, placing local firms at a severe disadvantage when competing against deep-pocketed multinational pharmaceutical giants. He notes that LaunXP chose to partner with a financially powerful Chinese entity rather than risk an independent, undercapitalised launch.
However, the limited capital available has led to a cadre of Taiwanese biotechs operating with what Oneness Biotech President Shuling Chen calls “exceptional discipline.” She explains, “Historically, as a manufacturing economy, every minute process element mattered. This culture translates directly into financial longevity. Give USD 100 million to a Silicon Valley company, and they may scale fast but burn through it in two years. Give that same amount to a Taiwanese biotech, and they can sustain operations for 10 or even 20 years. The trade-off is speed – you may not see a dramatic breakout in five years, but the survivability is vastly higher. In Taiwan, companies endure longer and excel at finding niche, differentiated strengths.”
AP Biosciences is another company that epitomises the slow and steady growth of Taiwanese biotech. “We recognised several years ago that it would be unrealistic to compete with Chinese companies on speed alone,” concedes Founder and CEO Jeng Her. “Their ability to advance projects quickly and at low cost is formidable, and it is difficult for anyone in Taiwan or Korea to match that pace. Our strategy has to be to act smarter rather than faster: identifying novel targets with real therapeutic promise, engineering distinctive mechanisms of action, and carefully defining the specific patient populations most likely to benefit.”
More liquidity would, of course, be welcome including from national authorities. “In an ideal world, the Taiwanese government should implement large-scale subsidy programs to accelerate domestic company growth and level the playing field,” urges LaunXP’s Chen. However, many insiders view major government subsidies as unrealistic and instead counsel founders to be more discerning with their business models. “Taiwan’s resources are limited, so our starting point must always be national need and careful prioritisation. As a small market, we cannot pursue everything; specialised, precision-driven development is where we shine,” advises DCB President Tsai-Kun Li. “Our strength as an innovative life science nation hinges upon our collective ability to differentiate rather than chase crowded trends.”
Yenchen Huang, Head of Investment and Vice President of Diamond Biofund, is confident that the local scene is already pivoting toward this lean, asset-light mindset. “Taiwan’s business culture, influenced by American and Japanese traditions, historically emphasised building sustainable, enduring enterprises from inception to commercialisation. Recently, however, this mindset has shifted. Entrepreneurs increasingly recognise that shepherding a biotech company all the way through full pharmaceutical commercialisation is extraordinarily difficult and perhaps unrealistic for most organisations.”
Huang points to a watershed moment in 2020, when Diamond’s portfolio company, Oneness Biotech, concluded a licensing agreement worth approximately $500 million USD with LEO Pharma. “That transaction transformed perceptions. It proved concretely that Taiwanese companies could secure major international partnerships. Following that landmark deal, we have observed a wave of global licensing transactions over the past three to five years. The precedent established credibility and redefined expectations,” he affirms.
A Unique Biotech Flavour
Siegfried Gschliesser, Co-Founder and CEO of Anya Biopharm, believes an appropriate analogy for Taiwan’s biotech scene is “Asia’s Switzerland.” “Taiwan is frequently underestimated. Yet, it possesses a formidable export economy, a top-tier talent pool, and excellent economic policies,” he reflects. “This foundation is underpinned by an operational longevity rooted in cultural heritage and a history of trans-disciplinary experience. The emphasis is always on tenacity, resilience, and meticulousness, which ultimately drives higher endurance.”
The ecosystem features other unique characteristics as well. “Taiwanese entrepreneurs frequently establish companies around just one or two pipeline candidates. This contrasts markedly with the United States, where biotechnology enterprises typically maintain 10, 20, or even 30 programs,” muses NYCU Professor Jaw-Jou Kang. “While it is difficult to fully explain this phenomenon – perhaps cultural factors emphasising individual entrepreneurship and company ownership contribute – it remains a defining tendency within Taiwan’s biotechnology landscape.”
There is also growing consensus that Taiwan’s ultimate strength lies in translational research rather than foundational discovery. “In terms of fundamental research, I do not believe Taiwan can compete directly with major economies like the US, which can deploy significantly more time and resources,” concedes Chi-Huey Wong, Scripps family chair professor of chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and president of the Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry (IBMI) – an organisation that acts as a vital catalyst bridging academic discovery and commercial execution in Taiwan.
“Where our nation genuinely excels is in converting raw discoveries into commercial opportunities; our capacity here is truly top-notch. The principal differentiator is Taiwan’s exceptional dominance in semiconductors and AI – sectors where we account for over 60 percent of the global market and a staggering 90 percent of advanced chips. Strategically integrating these tech capabilities into biotech development is the cornerstone of government policy and our most distinctive advantage. As the ICT industry converges with biotechnology, Taiwan is poised to build a truly unique biotech ecosystem. While the foundational technology may not always originate here, our forte lies in refinement, translational research, and flawless product development execution.”
A prime example is Anya Biopharm, a company pioneering the conversion of injectable peptide medications into highly bioavailable oral drugs. This breakthrough could rewrite the landscape of metabolic health, type 2 diabetes management, and chronic weight management because peptides represent the ‘Goldilocks’ of therapeutics. They are more targeted than small molecules – resulting in fewer side effects – yet far less costly to manufacture than monoclonal antibodies. However, oral delivery has historically been impossible.
“Normally, ingested peptides are instantly destroyed by intestinal proteases,” notes Siegfried Gschliesser. “Our core competency lies in a proprietary library of protease inhibitors and permeation enhancers. We can analyse a peptide and precisely predict the exact formulations needed to ensure its survival and absorption. Our goal is to become the ultimate formulation partner for any entity developing oral peptides.”
Their platform utilises 30 distinct combinations of metal ions, reducing agents, and permeation enhancers to bypass the digestive system’s destructive barriers. By replacing needles with pills, this technology addresses injection fatigue and physical scarring, drastically improving long-term compliance for chronic, life-long conditions.
Capturing Niches
At the same time, there is a clear tendency for Taiwan’s latest generation crop of biotechs to gravitate toward highly specialised niches. Diamond Biofund’s Yenchen Huang feels that this is inevitable. “Taiwan is a small market with a limited research scale. Unless our companies occupy precise niches or possess genuinely unique advantages, competing in crowded therapeutic areas like mainstream oncology is futile,” he says.
“Many of our most promising domestic biotechs have invested in complex modalities like antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and bispecific antibodies,” observes Tsai-Kun Li of the Development Center for Biotechnology (DCB). “These platforms require tight integration between biology, chemistry, manufacturing, and regulatory strategy. They also demand early, sustained clinical input, which Taiwan’s robust hospital ecosystem is uniquely positioned to provide.”
TaiMed Biologics, the first domestic biotech to commercialise a biologic therapy, perfectly illustrates this capability. “We validated a platform proving that antibody therapeutics can effectively treat HIV – a first-in-class achievement,” explains Chairman and CEO Jimmy Chang. “Our next-generation, long-acting bimonthly regimen represents a potential paradigm shift in HIV care, while our CD4-targeting platform is exceptionally well-positioned for precision medicine applications.”
Chang elaborates on the technology’s clinical potential: “We can engineer ADCs to carry small-molecule antiretroviral payloads directly to CD4 cells, deploying therapeutics precisely where viral replication occurs. This targeted delivery enables dramatic dose reductions while simultaneously improving safety and efficacy profiles.”
PharmaEngine offers a further illustration of this disciplined niche-seeking. Built around a virtual model with no laboratories or manufacturing facilities of its own, the company has used royalties from ONIVYDE — an irinotecan liposomal formulation approved for metastatic pancreatic cancer — to self-fund a next-generation pipeline of DNA Damage Response small molecules.
“Immuno-oncology and large indications demand resources that are not aligned with a virtual model,” explains President and CEO Hong-Ren Wang. “That analysis led us to the DNA Damage Response pathway — biology that is tightly linked to standard-of-care treatments, well validated, yet still offering room to improve efficacy, tolerability, and combination potential through more selective, better-designed small molecules.”
Meanwhile, Honeybear Biosciences is emerging as a pioneering force in precision oncology, leveraging its proprietary glycan conjugation platform to advance next-generation ADCs and antibody-radionuclide conjugates (ARCs). “At the heart of our innovation lies CoNectar, a proprietary site-specific glycan conjugation platform designed to enhance the precision, stability, and therapeutic potential of antibody-based treatments,” says Simon Chuang, CoNectar’s inventor and the company’s CEO. “Conventional conjugation methods typically attach drugs to lysine or cysteine residues, often resulting in heterogeneous mixtures with variable drug-to-antibody ratios that can affect pharmacokinetics and therapeutic performance. In contrast, CoNectar enables site-specific conjugation at the conserved glycan region of the antibody’s Fc domain. This enzymatic approach provides precise control over both the conjugation site and the drug-to-antibody ratio.”
Chuang adds that the technology’s flexibility opens new treatment pathways, supporting advanced modalities such as dual-payload ADCs — where two different drugs are attached to a single antibody to hit multiple cancer targets simultaneously — and radiopharmaceutical conjugates.
“By improving precision, consistency, and design flexibility, our platform supports advanced modalities such as dual-payload ADCs and radiopharmaceutical conjugates, positioning Honeybear at the forefront of innovation in precision oncology,” reinforces Vice Chairwoman and Executive President Sarina Lin.
OBI Pharma presents a complementary model. Having pivoted away from a failed Phase III cancer vaccine, the company has rebuilt itself around a proprietary enzymatic ADC conjugation platform generating highly homogeneous antibody-drug conjugates that partners have benchmarked favourably against established competitors. “One major partner conducted a direct head-to-head comparison and concluded without hesitation that ours were superior. That assessment led directly to a commercial licensing agreement,” recounts Heidi Wang, the company’s recently retired CEO.
Another innovative developer, AP Biosciences, has chosen to specialise in bispecific antibodies by leveraging its deep expertise in protein engineering. This oncology-focused approach aims to deliver biological synergistic effects that standard drug combinations simply cannot achieve. “Our answer was bispecific antibodies: molecules capable of binding two antigens simultaneously,” explains CEO Jeng Her. “Our latest candidate is designed to move beyond the limitations of current checkpoint inhibitors by initiating a self-reinforcing cycle of tumour destruction and immune activation. Once cancer cells are killed, their antigens are captured by macrophages and dendritic cells, which stimulate and expand T-cells. These T-cells then return to the tumour site to drive additional killing.”
While AP Biosciences currently stands as the only company in Taiwan solely dedicated to bispecific antibodies, its roadmap extends far beyond. “We are already exploring next-generation formats, including bispecific ADCs and trispecific molecules,” Her reveals.
Cross-Disciplinary Spillover
Taiwan’s knowledge spillover from its semiconductor and ICT sectors uniquely benefits a new breed of biotech companies whose offerings transcend traditional boundaries between pharmaceuticals and medtech. A prime example is Heron Neutron, a company delivering high-performance, targeted radiation therapy with significantly reduced system cooling times compared to global competitors.
Heron Neutron specialises in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT). “The patient receives a boron-containing drug that is selectively absorbed by cancer cells,” explains Leo Shen, the company’s general manager. “The tumour site is then irradiated with a neutron beam. When the neutrons interact with the boron, they trigger a highly localised destructive reaction within the cancer cell itself, leaving surrounding healthy tissue virtually untouched.”
As a technology leader in the BNCT space, Heron Neutron focuses heavily on performance, efficiency, and clinical throughput. While competing systems in Japan, Korea, China, and the US often require over two hours of treatment room cooling time after irradiation, Heron Neutron’s system requires just five to ten minutes. This drastic reduction allows hospitals to treat several times more patients per day, significantly improving equipment utilisation, clinical economics, and patient access.
Furthermore, Taiwan’s medical network provides unique strategic advantages. “Our parent company, Hermes-Epitek, has longstanding relationships with hospital leadership and key decision-makers, which facilitates high-level engagement,” Shen notes. “Institutions like Taipei Veterans General Hospital (TVGH) and major universities have already partnered with us to establish initial BNCT programmes. Leveraging these connections has accelerated both clinical deployment and market adoption, creating a strong foundation for regional and global expansion.”
A similar logic animates aetherAI, a digital pathology company that has built AI-assisted diagnostic tools now embedded in approximately 70 percent of Taiwan’s medical centres — a penetration rate that dwarfs the estimated five percent seen in the US market. “Around 2017, I recognised that AI would drive digital pathology adoption,” recalls Joe Yeh, the company’s founder and CEO. “AI counts every single cell — pathologists performing quantitative reporting have historically relied on visual estimation. That precision gap is where we intervene.” The company’s trajectory illustrates a broader truth about Taiwan’s bio-ICT ecosystem: competitive advantage here rarely comes from a single discipline, but from the ability to fuse software, hardware, and clinical insight in ways that purely pharmaceutical or purely technology companies cannot replicate.
Syncell pushes this convergence further still, into the emerging discipline of spatial proteomics. Founded by Jung-Chi Liao, a mechanical engineer by training who spent 25 years in biological research before returning to Taiwan’s Academia Sinica, the company has developed a microscopy-guided protein extraction technology that uses laser light to chemically tag and isolate proteins from precisely targeted subcellular locations — Parkinson’s aggregates, drug-resistant tumour boundaries, exhausted T-cell regions — for downstream mass spectrometry analysis.
The approach addresses a fundamental gap: pathologists can visually identify disease sites but have had no reliable means of molecularly characterising them. “Proteins represent approximately 95 percent of drug targets,” notes Liao. “Because we directly identify proteins from specific tissue regions, our approach is more directly relevant to drug target identification than RNA-based spatial methods.” With the Mayo Clinic among its early customers and Thermo Fisher as a key partner, Syncell is carving out a category – subcellular tissue biopsy – that did not previously exist, and doing so from Taipei.
Perhaps the most striking example of this cross-disciplinary spillover is Iridium Medical Technology. A Diamond Biofund portfolio company, Iridium positions itself as a neural electronic interface pioneer aiming to revolutionise artificial vision with a 4,000-pixel bionic retina. “They are using CMOS image sensors – a direct product of semiconductor manufacturing – to replace damaged retinal tissue, and are developing flexible chips designed for subretinal implantation,” explains Diamond Biofund’s Yenchen Huang. “This project uniquely benefits from Taiwan’s semiconductor supply chain. Executing a development of this complexity in the US or elsewhere would be extraordinarily difficult because the necessary infrastructure simply does not exist there.”
Iridium CEO Long-Sheng Fan recalls the insight that sparked the company’s founding. “Coming from a semiconductor background, I noticed a stark disparity,” Fan explains. “Consumer electronics already possessed multimillion-pixel sensors. Yet, at that time, the only company with US FDA approval was producing an artificial vision device with just 60 pixels, which barely met patient needs. Given Taiwan’s status as a global semiconductor powerhouse, we realised we could leverage this world-class infrastructure to create something truly transformative for blind patients.”
Fan highlights how Iridium’s architecture overcomes historical industry limitations: “Traditional industry standards relied on placing passive micro-electrode arrays in the eye to communicate with resonant neurons. These legacy systems required an external, glass-mounted camera to transmit data to the chip, which was highly inconvenient. Furthermore, bandwidth limitations made it impossible to achieve a resolution useful to the patient. Because the camera was fixed to the eyewear, patients had to rotate their entire head to change their field of view; they could not simply move their eyes.”
Iridium’s approach fundamentally reengineers this paradigm. “We integrated the retina and neural interface chips directly so we can utilise the eye’s natural optics,” Fan elaborates. “Light projects directly onto our implanted chips, which perform AI convolution to translate those visual images into neural signals. By communicating directly with surviving neurons to send signals to the brain, the patient experiences vision in a far more natural, effective manner.”
What, then, should we make of this proliferation of ambitious, emerging Taiwanese biotechs?
“Looking ahead, our industry’s ultimate ambition is to transition from a ‘Made in Taiwan’ model to more of a ‘Created in Taiwan’ posture,” concludes DCB Chairman Shiing-Jer Twu. “We will achieve this by recognising and strategically embracing our structural limitations, while leaning heavily into the unique assets that allow us to be global value creators. By doing so, Taiwan will offer something truly distinct and highly prized on the world stage.”
