Source: Taipei Times by Kao Shih-ching

TaiGen Biopharmaceuticals Holdings Ltd (太景醫藥研發控股) swung into profit last year with net profit of NT$775 million (US$27.1 million) after it received a bonus payment from China’s Zhejiang Medicine Co (浙江醫藥集團), it said yesterday.

Last year marked TaiGen’s first profitable year since 2017, as it registered net losses of NT$343 million in 2018, NT$295 million in 2019 and NT$404 million in 2020.

Despite reporting earnings per share of NT$1.08 for last year, the company’s board of directors has proposed not to distribute a cash dividend this year, TaiGen said.

The company attributed the improvement in its balance sheet to a payment of NT$1.29 billion from Zhejiang Medicine to buy TaiGen’s Chinese patent of its antibacterial drug Taigenxyn (nemonoxacin).

The money was used to develop the new experimental anti-influenza drug TG-1000 and a new antibiotic for a drug-resistant bacterium, the company said in a statement.

“We are still compiling the data generated in our phase 2 clinical trials for TG-1000, so it will take a while before we reveal the results,” TaiGen chairman Philip Huang (黃國龍) said in the statement.

TaiGen finished recruiting all 202 participants for human tests last month.

The company would determine the overseas market for the development of TG-1000 after phase 2 human trials are completed, Huang said.

Although the phase 2 tests are being conducted in China, the test results can be used to file an application with the US Food and Drug Administration, as the protocols of the tests meet the agency’s requirements, Huang said earlier this year.