On June 19th, i2i Chairman Gary Gong led a delegation, including Deputy Director Wu Chia-Ying of the Small and Medium Enterprise and Startup Administration of Taiwan's Ministry of Economic Affairs, to visit PharmaEssentia’s PharmaEssentia Innovation Research Center (PIRC) in Boston. During the visit, the delegation met with Dr. KuoChong Lin, Founder and CEO of PharmaEssentia, and other key members.
The visit was facilitated by former Minister of Economic Affairs, Yen-Hsiang Shih, with the goal of leveraging PharmaEssentia's resources in the U.S. to help Taiwanese startups establish a presence on the East Coast. This initiative aims to foster the growth of Taiwan's biotech talent in the U.S., thereby deepening Taiwan-US research collaborations.
(Photo: group photo at the PharmaEssentia visit.)
i2i Accelerates Program Deployment in the U.S. East Coast with PharmaEssentia’s Support
The PharmaEssentia delegation for this visit was led by Dr. KuoChong Lin, Founder and CEO, and Dr. Lily Lin, Chief Scientific Officer and Head of the Boston Research Center. The team also included Ming-Tang Chen (Sr. Director of Biologics Platform), Kuan-Chun Huang (Sr. Director of Immunology and Pharmacology), Erik Sampson (Director of Translational Pharmacology), Tom Lin (Director of Operations and Data Science), Mureil Huang (Head of Global Investor Relations Corporate Communications), and Sang Hsu (Principal Scientist & Sr. Lab Manager).
Dr. KuoChong Lin expressed strong interest in supporting future Taiwanese startups in Boston. As an entrepreneur and a Taiwanese national, he is passionate about mentoring the next generation and supporting one another. This visit laid the foundation for future collaborations under i2i’s IP2 Scale Out Program, which aims to establish a base in Boston on the U.S. East Coast.
(Photo: Tour of the PharmaEssentia Boston Research Center laboratory.)
About PharmaEssentia
PharmaEssentia is a global biopharmaceutical company, founded in 2003 and headquartered in Taiwan. Its PharmaEssentia Innovation Research Center (PIRC) is located in Boston and specializes in developing new biologics for hematology and oncology.
In 2022, the company received FDA approval for a rare blood cancer drug, marking a significant milestone as one of the most successful spin-offs nurtured by Taiwan’s Academia Sinica. PharmaEssentia has operations in the United States, Japan, China, and South Korea.
About Dr. KuoChong Lin
Dr. KuoChong Lin holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Missouri and conducted postdoctoral research at the University of Michigan. He has served as Chief Scientist in the New Drug Development Department at Monsanto-Searle Group's Technology Innovation Center and as a group leader in Biogen's New Drug Development Department, where he was responsible for overseeing new drug development projects.
In 2000, responding to Taiwan’s government policy to foster the biotech industry, Dr. KuoChong Lin gathered Taiwanese scientists in the biotech field to return to Taiwan and founded PharmaEssentia.
The company received investments from Taiwan’s National Development Fund and the management committee of Yao Hua Glass.
PharmaEssentia focuses on new drug development and successfully developed BESREMi® for the treatment of adults with polycythemia vera (PV) in 2019.
In 2022, the company received FDA approval for a rare blood cancer drug. PharmaEssentia’s Taichung facility and Taipei PEG production site comply with international standards and have received GMP certification from authorities in Europe, the United States, Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan.
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