WHEN Albert Tseng, head of the scientific advisory board of the Melbourne-based drug company, Analytica, went to Taiwan five years ago, he thought it was "like the old Wild West". The island nation's pharmaceutical industry was primitive, consisting mainly of makers of generic "me-too" drugs. There was no notion of how to take a compound from basic research through to a finished product.
Amid the dross, however, Tseng found gold nuggets waiting to be refined. At a retreat, scientists from Taiwan's leading research institutes took Tseng aside and showed him a compound they extracted from the bark of a local hardwood. Now known as cytonin, the compound showed promise as an anti-cancer drug. But lack of proper protection for intellectual property had prevented the Taiwanese from following up on their discovery.
Cytonin was not an isolated example. Analytica is now playing a key role in developing the local biotechnology industry, ...
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