The Edge
Financial Daily, 22 February 2008
Biotech on track for 70 BioNexus firms by year-end
BY Kathleen Tan
KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation
(BiotechCorp) is on target to grant BioNexus status
to 70 companies by end 2008, with nine biotechnology
companies, including a foreign outfit, recently
added to its portfolio as of January.
With 51 BioNexus companies and a total investment
worth of over RM1 billion to date, BiotechCorp chief
executive officer Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood said
the numbers were expected to grow as more companies
became more aware of the requirements needed to
qualify for the BioNexus status and could there fore
benchmark themselves more effectively.
Iskandar was speaking yesterday at the launch of the
Malaysia Korea Business Partnering forum, a
“targeted approach in terms of developing business
alliances with Korea”, which was attended by 30
Malaysian and 12 Korean biotechnology companies as
well as three major Korean research institutes.
The event was organised by BiotechCorp to encourage
Korean biotechnology business partnerships with
hopes that “by the end of 2008 we would have a
Korean company as a BioNexus company,” said Iskandar.
Citing a biotechnology competitiveness study
conducted among in countries - Malaysia, Singapore,
South Korea, China, India, New Zealand and Australia
– by Ernst & Young in 2006, he said Malaysia’s key
competencies were in its biodiversity and human
capital while Korea boasted of investment and
biomaterials.
According to Korea Research Institute of Bioscience
Biotechnology business development division director
Dr Jun- Gi Jung, 90% of the US$ 1 billion (RM3.27
billion) budget allocated for national R& D had been
allocated to the biotechnology industry.
“Our Korean counterparts have selected an approach
that has proven to yield strong results. This is
clearly one of the many international models that we
would be benchmarking ourselves against as we
complete our capacity building phase from 2005 to
2010 and moving on into the commercialisation
phase,” said Iskandar.
Ask on specific areas of collaboration between the
two countries, Iskandar said: “We did allude the
fact that nanotechnology platform was now available
in Malaysia and we’re opening it up for
collaboration with Korea so that Korean parties can
leverage on our strength.”
He said Korea had its strength in bioplastics, which
are plastics derived from non-chemical compounds and
could be considered in future collaborations along
with other fields of biotechnology such as food
biopharmaceuticals, bioinformatics, bionutrition and
biocosmetics.
With the conferment of a BioNexus status, Korean
partners and investors could benefit from a host of
incentives including the BioNexus Bill of Guarantees
as well as commercialisation grants facilitated by
BiotechCorp.
In November last year, BiotechCorp had acquired an
exclusive worldwide licence in nanotechnology
platform for non-cancer purposes from French based
Nanobiotix. |
|
