Articles
Contemporary Taiwan finds itself navigating unprecedented healthcare challenges, having transitioned into a super-aged society with unexpected speed, compounded by one of the lowest birth rates globally. In 2024, to secure the nation’s future, President Lai Ching-te launched his flagship ‘Healthy Taiwan’ initiative. This comprehensive blueprint strives to shift the public healthcare apparatus from a model…
In recent years, Taiwan’s policymakers have been aggressively deploying a multi-layered industrial strategy – and doing so with the benefit of watching earlier regional movers stumble – in an effort to transform the island into a premier global hub for Cell and Gene Therapy (C>) manufacturing and development. This state-driven momentum has perhaps been most…
Over the past three decades, Taiwan’s elderly population – defined as individuals aged 65 and older – has expanded by a staggering 152 percent. This demographic shift has introduced complex public health challenges, most notably a sharp rise in cancer incidence. “The epidemiological picture is quite sobering,” notes John Chang, CEO of the Formosa Cancer…
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…
Semiconductors: Silicon Powerhouse Taiwan and semiconductors – the microscopic chips inside virtually every electronic device – are inextricably linked. For a modestly sized island, Taiwan’s semiconductor dominance is extraordinary: through the state-backed TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company), the island functions as the world’s foundry, manufacturing the advanced chips designed by the likes of Apple, Nvidia…
Taiwan runs one of the most cost-effective universal healthcare systems in the world, delivering near-universal coverage to 23 million people at a fraction of what comparable systems cost elsewhere. At the foundation of that achievement sits a network of domestic generic and OTC manufacturers, several of them family-owned businesses now approaching their centenary, that together…
Despite its modest market size, Taiwan is proving a popular investment destination for pharma and medtech multinationals. While the island’s semiconductor industry garners more headlines and revenues, life sciences is also growing as an investment sector. Taiwan is frequently near the front of the queue within APAC for new product launches and global life science…
Access to capital is the difference between life and death for small biotechs and life science start-ups. But in an industry with high levels of failure and decades-long development cycles, finding the right investors – those with sufficiently deep pockets and enough of an appetite for risk – can be extremely challenging. Taiwan has…
With US-China geopolitical tensions pushing multinational pharma to seek manufacturing bases outside China, does Taiwan’s CDMO sector offer a compelling alternative? Recent US policy moves could reshape the global pharmaceutical supply chain. Most significantly, by blocking any company that receives federal funding or government contracts from using ‘high-risk’ Chinese manufacturers (many of whom have…
