OEP and NanoCarrier Set up JV Drug Factory in Taiwan

Taipei, Nov. 16, 2012 (CENS)--Taiwan-headquartered pharmaceutical maker Orient Europharma Co., Ltd. (OEP) recently announced to set up a joint-venture factory on the island with Japanese partner NanoCarrier Co., Ltd., becoming the first investment in 20 years by a foreign drug maker in Taiwan.

The factory is scheduled to kick off mass production in 2016 of anti-cancer drug injections, generating annual revenue of about US$500 million initially.

Construction of the new factory in Yunlin, central Taiwan will start 2013 to be NanoCarrier's first production facility in the world. NanoCarrier said it will devote all efforts to the planning and construction of the new factory, and aims to be certified by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare in Japan.

The plant will supply Nanoplatin globally, cost an estimated NT$ 700 million (US$23.3 million) to build, and create over 50 post-graduate jobs for central Taiwan. OEP will invest about NT$600 million (US$20 million), with NanoCarrier mainly providing technologies.

According to NanoCarrier, Nanoplatin (or Cisplatin) is a platinum-based chemotherapy drug that is widely used to treat cancers. By bonding with DNA in cancer cells, it interferes with the replication of DNA to stop division and multiplication of cells and ultimately kills them. The new drug now is in Phase II clinical trial. OEP and NanoCarrier plan to cooperate further by conducting registration trials of Nanoplatin in Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Australia.

Ichiro Nakatomi, President of NanoCarrier, said that the authorities in Taiwan, including Taiwan Food and Drug Administration (TFDA) under Department of Health, and Industrial Development Bureau (IDB) have come up with a new policy to support and assist domestic companies contributing to research and development of innovative pharmaceutical products by expediting drug licenses.