President Wong of IBMI was interviewed by Ms. Julija Lukaityte from the British Media PharmaBoardroom on January 13 for Healthcare & Life Sciences Review 2026: Taiwan

• Personal journey and global perspective

Reflections from a career spanning US and Taiwanese research systems, and how this experience shaped views on science, innovation, and national competitiveness.

I was born and educated in Taiwan until I finished my master’s degree before I went to MIT in 1979 for my Ph.D. study in chemistry. My research experience in Taiwan on protein science and peptide chemistry, including the total synthesis of snake venom proteins and their folding study, gave me a solid foundation to pursue my Ph.D. at MIT. At MIT, I was fortunate to study the use of enzymes in organic synthesis under Professor George Whitesides, a world renown chemist. After receiving my Ph.D. in 1982, I moved with Prof. Whitesides to Harvard as a postdoc for another year before my independent career.

During my stay in the US, I found there are differences and similarities in education between Taiwan and the US. Both Taiwan and the US emphasize creativity and innovation, but American education encourages independent thinking, creativity and high-risk discovery research, oral and written presentation skills, and practical application (such as "show-and-tell" at younger ages), while Taiwan’s education emphasizes rigorous foundational knowledge acquisition, discipline, written examinations, and hard work. 

• IBMI’s mission and evolution

The role IBMI has played since its founding in 2009 in connecting policy, industry, and research, and how its remit has evolved alongside Taiwan’s healthcare and biotech ecosystem.

IBMI was founded in 2002 by Mr. Jin-Pyng Wang when he was President of the Legislative Yuan. The mission was, and continues to be, "promoting biotech development for national health in Taiwan”. In the past years, IBMI also played a significant role in accelerating biomedical innovation, supporting early-stage startups, and setting national standards for quality and certification.

I have been involved in the activity of IBMI since the beginning. When I assumed the presidency of IBMI in 2019, IBMI focused on integrating the strengths of Taiwan in semiconductors, AI-chip manufacturing and universal healthcare into biomedical R&D. I think strengthening software capability for developing AI-assisted biomedical R&D is a key part of the current strategy, which aligns with the government's "Healthy Taiwan" policy. 

In recent years, the healthcare sector has been working together with Taiwan’s strongest ICT and semiconductor sectors as a major growth opportunity. This new development has pushed IBMI to serve as a bridge for cross-disciplinary collaborations, bringing top technology leaders into healthcare and biomedicine and expanding international partnerships. Today, the core members of IBMI include leaders from Taiwan’s leading hospitals, ICT and semiconductor companies, biotech, and financial sectors. Since 2017, IBMI has been organizing annual “Taiwan EXPO” to highlight new biomedical development and foster international collaboration, making IBMI a key interface between Taiwan’s bioindustry and global biomedical sectors.

In summary, IBMI’s mission centers on four areas: helping policy making, setting national standards for quality and certification, providing a platform for cross-disciplinary and international collaboration, and accelerating biomedical innovation and startups.

• Taiwan’s biotech strategy and policy direction

Perspectives on the evolution of national biotech priorities under recent administrations, and the current policy signals shaping industry confidence and execution.

Taiwan's current strategic policy direction in the biotech sectors is actively promoting precision health and leveraging its robust ICT and semiconductor capabilities to drive innovation. As you know, according to general industry outlooks, global healthcare spending continues to increase, from roughly $12 trillion to an estimated $15 trillion by 2030, with significant growth in early detection and prevention, accounting for more than one quarter of the total spending. The move from disease treatment to early detection and prevention, also called precision health, is a recognized global shift.

The Taiwanese government has recognized this opportunity and is leveraging its strength in high-tech industries like AI, big data, and advanced manufacturing to implement smart healthcare solutions with key initiatives, such as “Healthy Taiwan Plan” and “AI-Driven Smart Medical Care”, to integrate these technologies into the biotech sector. In addition, the government has made the precision health industry one of its six core strategic industries for its 2030 vision. Recent actions, including R&D budget increase and specific programs like Taiwan Precision Medicine Initiative (TPMI), a large-scale project collecting genetic and clinical data from over half a million participants to facilitate personalized precision health care and biotech R&D using big data analysis, and the Taiwan Bio-Manufacturing Corporation (TBMC), focusing on manufacturing services in advanced biologics like cell and gene therapies, to enhance its role in the global supply chain.

Taiwan has become a super-aged society. Policy priorities, such as preventive medicine, early detection especially of cancer and neural degenerative diseases, chronic disease management, and smart care are thus in high demand and creating long-term domestic and global markets and give biotech companies a strong incentive to invest in the fields. National priorities are therefore moving toward deployable solutions with emphasis on real-world evidence and establishment of healthcare data infrastructure and clinical demonstration sites. In addition, policies such as the expanded Act for the Development of the Biotech and Pharmaceutical Industry have provided incentives for biotech development, regenerative medicine, and digital health. Taken together, Healthy Taiwan creates demand, while industry provides supply, a clear signal that Taiwan is building a sustainable ecosystem for healthcare innovations and real-world validation.

I think a shift from "Made in Taiwan" (referring to strong contract manufacturing) to a focus on innovation and R&D (also called "Created in Taiwan") is reflected in the current government's goal to move from being a "technology follower" to a "value chain creator". 

• R&D strengths and ecosystem dynamics

Taiwan’s core scientific and translational capabilities, areas of differentiation versus other Asian hubs, and remaining gaps in scaling innovation.

Taiwan's R&D strength lies in its world-class semiconductor and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sectors, accounting for over 60% of the world's semiconductors and a dominant 90%+ of the most advanced chips. Other examples like laptop computers, smart cell phones, and power supply. This success is largely due to the established ecosystem with hundreds and thousands of companies built over decades working together, with government’s support, in a timely and organized manner, allowing rapid prototyping, speed, and manufacturing excellence that is difficult to replicate quickly.

On the other hand, Taiwan’s strength in biotech is its translational ecosystem. Taiwan is exceptionally good at translating research outcomes into clinical validation and industrial execution. Another key differentiator is the tight link between hospitals and industry. Taiwan’s leading healthcare system has a strong clinical trial capability, with access to the real-world data from National Health Insurance. I think, Taiwan’s edge is Bio + ICT, a unique differentiator for developing an innovative biotech industry.

However, Taiwan also faces major challenges. While strong in hardware and manufacturing, there is a gap in moving beyond contract manufacturing to developing high-value-added applications, services, and proprietary brands, which the government is actively trying to address. Taiwan also faces challenges in basic research compared to larger economies like the U.S., which can involve more time and resource investment. Additionally, Taiwan needs to continuously expand its talent pool and invest in late-stage trials to bring innovative products to the global market and invest in new sectors to diversify its economy and mitigate risks from over-reliance on a single industry. While Taiwan currently holds a relatively small share of the global biotech market, I am sure its efforts to address challenges will drive Taiwan to create a unique biotech industry to deliver unique products for precision health and medicine. I think it is just a matter of time.

• Manufacturing resilience and strategic capacity

Taiwan’s positioning in pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing, supply chain resilience, and the balance between efficiency and strategic autonomy.

Taiwan is actively working to enhance its pharmaceutical and biotech manufacturing and supply chain resilience, with government initiative and cooperation with international partners to introduce innovative production technologies and enhance visibility in the global biomedical industry. The aspiration is to use the existing comprehensive supply chain and robust foundation in smart manufacturing, automation, and the leading semiconductor/AI-chip industry as a base for the biotech industry.

One of Taiwan’s key policy priorities today is the “Drug Resilience Program.” It focuses on strengthening domestic capacity for critical medicines to ensure supply stability and supports new drug development. The goal is to move beyond licensing and continue through scalable manufacturing and deeper collaboration with global pharmaceutical companies, so Taiwan’s R&D can be more directly integrated into global supply chains. This is driven by a need for strategic autonomy, especially in the wake of global supply chain disruptions during the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Convergence of life sciences and semiconductors

Opportunities at the intersection of biotech, AI, chips, and advanced manufacturing, and what is required to move from collaboration to impact.

There is a significant opportunity arising from the convergence of life sciences and semiconductors, particularly AI-assisted biotech R&D. These include: the potential for designing software that uses machine learning and AI for R&D; using AI to interpret and integrate the massive datasets generated by various 'omics' fields (genomics, proteomics, etc.), biobanks, as well as clinical data from Universal Healthcare to facilitate R&D,  to analyze simple tests (like blood tests) for identifying appropriate patients for clinical trials and optimizing patient care; and to control microparameters in processes like cell culture for improved manufacturing efficiency and consistency. Overall, the convergence of life sciences, AI, and semiconductors is one of Taiwan’s most distinctive strategic opportunities and it is already translating into tangible progress. Taiwan has developed more than ten new drugs that have entered international markets, and AI is expected to play an increasingly significant role in drug design and development, and manufacturing, helping improve speed and efficiency. The challenge is turning these capabilities into deployable and scalable solutions—and that’s where IBMI plays a connecting role.

• Global competitiveness and international positioning

How Taiwan can strengthen its standing as a trusted global biotech partner for investors, multinationals, and collaborators.

Taiwan has earned its reputation as a trusted global leader in the semiconductor and AI-chip industry. It has a highly educated workforce with an emphasis on science and engineering, and biotechnology has been a national strategic priority for over two decades, aiming to replicate the success of the semiconductor industry.

The development of Science Parks and other industrial clusters fostered a synergistic ecosystem of suppliers, manufacturers, and talent. The culture of hard work, freedom-loving and respect for intellectual property (IP) protection is generally considered a key factor for such success, as these traits can foster an innovative and resilient environment and are attractive to foreign partners. The success of TSMC and Taiwanese American talent like the founders of NVIDIA and AMD reflects this potential and I am sure the biotech development in Taiwan has the potential and will follow the same culture and spirit.

In my personal experience, when I served as the President of Academia Sinica, I helped introduce policies like the Biotech & New Drug Development Act, and the Bioscience Park to foster translational research and industry-academia cooperation. Based on my experience, Taiwan has a solid foundation to become a significant global biotech partner. The same cultural spirit and strategic government support present in the semiconductor industry are being leveraged. Taiwan’s global biotech position is built on a strong clinical infrastructure, a world-leading healthcare system and comprehensive healthcare data, and real-world validation capability. In the AI era, Taiwan is putting its effort to integrate biotech with ICT and advanced manufacturing to develop new drugs and medical devices to benefit global health. However, specific challenges such as access to capital, talent retention, and global market integration must be addressed in parallel with the overwhelming global dominance achieved in semiconductors. 

• Leadership and innovation lessons from the US–Taiwan axis

Comparative insights on leadership, innovation culture, and system design across the two ecosystems.

Taiwan and the US share the same values of democracy and freedom and are complementary to each other in innovation. The US tends to emphasize discovery-driven innovation, with a high tolerance for risk and a strong focus on breakthrough ideas. Taiwan is strong in execution, building reliable systems, maintaining precision, and scaling innovation efficiently. I believe these two complementary models can reinforce each other.

From the US experience, the key lesson is risk-taking—supporting ambitious science, strong industry-academia relationship and cooperation, accepting failure as part of the process, and using capital structures to encourage disruptive innovation. Taiwan’s strength lies in what happens after discovery—the ability to turn complex ideas from discoveries into standardized, scalable solutions like manufacturing capability, cross-sector coordination, and excellent clinical infrastructure. The broader takeaway message is that effective leadership today requires the ability to bridge visionary discovery with effective execution, so innovation can move quickly from the lab into real-world healthcare. It is therefore important for Taiwan to give scientists and leaders more room to pursue high-risk and high-impact as well as first-in-class ambitions, rather than focusing only on incremental progress.

• Future outlook amid global uncertainty

Priorities for Taiwan’s life sciences sector and IBMI’s role in navigating geopolitical, financial, and technological uncertainty.

Taiwan's life sciences sector is facing challenges amid global uncertainty, including geopolitical shifts, economic volatility, and rapid technological changes, like the AI revolution and advanced therapies. It is important to identify prioritized areas and improve funding systems to boost translational research and industry-academia cooperation. The general context of global uncertainty is a widely acknowledged factor influencing global industries, including life sciences. Nevertheless, the general outlook for Taiwan's life sciences is optimistic, with high growth in all sectors, provided these external pressures are managed. The priorities in life science sector include leveraging Taiwan's strengths, such as its high-tech expertise and high-quality data, to diversify its innovation base and play a larger role in global supply chains. Initiatives have been in place to help domestic companies enter global markets and bridge the gap between academic research and commercialization (translational research), though challenges remain in areas like regulatory alignment and funding access to leading companies to gain an edge in the global market.

IBMI’s role is to build a platform to integrate capabilities across the healthcare, ICT, and biomedical sectors, and to facilitate international collaboration. As you know, AI is an area where Taiwan has built capabilities for more than two decades, and its most promising applications are now in healthcare and biomedicine. IBMI will continue to drive the integration of AI into these sectors to facilitate the development of advanced healthcare and biotech industry to benefit human health.