Taipei, May 14, 2009 (CENS)--Korn Dabbaransi, former Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand, recently confirmed that his nation and Taiwan would set up a biotech cooperation program participated by government, academia and industry.

The program will initially develop cosmetics, pharmaceutical, and health-food products for the Thai market, which will also be sold in Taiwan and other Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) markets.

Under the partnership, Korn pointed out, Thailand would supply natural ingredients as herbs, while Taiwan would handle the production techniques and marketing.

Medigreen Biotechnology Corp. chairman Jian Kuo-huei said that pharmaceutical regulations in Taiwan are more stringent than the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) standards in the United States, while the domestic market is too small to achieve economy of scale for new drugs. The Taiwan-Thailand cooperation project is a good way to build local biopharmaceutical makers, he added.

According to Korn, the cooperation plan would see participation by technology development institutes, government units, universities in Thailand as well as the ITRI and herbal-medicine makers in Taiwan.

The former Deputy Prime Minister deemed that the health-care/cosmetic market in Thailand is very big, and the Taiwan-Thailand cooperation is expected to achieve a win-win situation for the two sides.

Initial statistics show that the market revenue of traditional natural drugs in Thailand was US$750 million in 1999 and US$1 billion in 2000. In 2004, only the import value reached US$1.68 billion.


(by Quincy Liang)