The race was on among young biotech Chief Executive Officers (CEOs) for top position in 2023 Best Bio CEO awards organised by Global Bio and Investment media in Taipei, Taiwan recently. All the 30 young CEOs participating in the final roadshow made a three minute presentation before the panel of judges to win the top position. 

Dr Kuo-Hsiang Chuang, CEO, CytoArm became the Best Bio CEO. Dr Chuang is the inventor and leader of the Armed T-cell technology platform. He is promoting Armed T-cell products to arm cells against cancer. In his presentation he compared his technology with other CAR-T cells.

The second position was won jointly by Louis Cheng, Co-Founder and CEO, Leadgene Biomedical, and John Pan, President, SunWay Biotech. Under Cheng’s leadership, Leadgene is investing in R&D shaping a high-quality ecosystem for the biotechnology industry in Taiwan. Cheng was also selected as CEO with potential.

Olivia Tseng, Chairperson, A-Top Health, was selected by vote for the best popularity award. Her company specialises in developing dermatological medical devices.

Besides the top and joint second winners, seven other top CEOs are- Alex Lee of CatchGene, Chung-Hsin Wang of Trust Bio-sonics, Pan of La Vida Tec, Veon Lee of Asia Pathogenomics, Richard Hsu of Leeuwenhoek Laboratories, Yu-Fen Chang of LumiSTAR Biotechnology and Miko Wen of Taiwan Earning.

In his presentation Alex Lee said he started CatchGene in 2016 and in 2020 it will break even due to precise product positioning and international marketing. Wang’s Trust Bio-sonics develops next generation ultrasound drug delivery technology and applies them to diagnosis and treatment of cardiovascular related diseases and cancer.

Pan’s La Vida Tec engages in reducing the impact of ageing by preventive medicines. During COVID-19, it cooperated with the government to help 450,000 senior citizens participate in digital health promotion activities reducing the social impact of the pandemic. Veon Lee helped Asia Pathogenomics obtain first LDTS laboratory registration for pathogen genome sequencing in Taiwan.

Hsu’s expertise is in mass spectrometry analysis technology and its application in clinical diagnosis and the human gut microbiome metabolome. Chang’s LumiSTAR is also working in the area of improving life quality for elderly by focusing on development of high-throughput all-optical iPSC disease model drug screening platforms. Wen transitioned from aerospace engineering to pet tumor medicine to human medicine for new drug development by setting up Taiwan engineering.

This is the second year of Global Biotech Taiwan CEO awards. After submission of the application, the process of selection included written review, online popularity voting to select 30 CEOs for the final round. In the final round each CEO made a short presentation before the panel of judges. 

Dr Andrew H-J Wang, President, International Union of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, chaired the panel of judges. The judges were Michael Kao, President of Taiwan ITRI New Venture Association (TINVA), Prof Elsa Yi-Hsin Hsu, Professor of biotechnology EMBA at Taipei Medical University, Clara Chang, Team Leader of Business at National Development Fund, Prof Ching-Pu Chen, Director of Taiwan Business Bank Venture Capital Co., Prof. Chuan-Fa Chang at Department of Medical Laboratory science and Biotechnology, College of medicines, National Cheng Kung University, Dr Michel Chu, General Manager of Industrial Technology Investment Corporation (ITIC), Yu-Fang Yen, practicing accountant of Pricewwaterhouse Cooper (PWC), Taiwan Dr Milind Kokje, Chief Editor, BioSpectrum Asia, Dr Irene Wang, General Manager of Lin BioSciences and winner of the TOP CEO award the previous year, Sonia Wu, Senior Associate, Biomedical Fund Department, China Development Industrial Bank (CDIB) and David Chow, Chairman, ZHI KANG Venture Capital Investment.

At the awards presentation ceremony, Mind Lin, Editor of Global Bio and Investment, thanked all participants and sponsors. She said the awards are given to encourage more young CEO talents to come to the fore and also to reserve a more high-level manager talent pool for Taiwan’s biomedical industry in the long run. 

Dr Wang spoke about the selection process. He said the awards received the participation of many outstanding new companies, covering new drugs, testing, and telemedicine, Al medical care, nutrition and health care, etc. The judges made a very careful evaluation from written review to road show, and also saw that the biotechnology industry is shining brightly.

Wu Hanzhong, Director of the Biomedical Translation Research Center of Academia Sinica, said that the Global Biotech Taiwan New CEO Award is consistent with the three major visions of our national biotechnology research park, such as nurturing innovative biomedical translation talent, and establishing a biomedical industry ecosystem. In the park, in the past five years since its establishment, the number of residents has increased from 500 to more than 3,000, and there are more than 45 manufacturers. "We hope to continue to inject new strength into the development of Taiwan's biotech industry", he said.

Milind Kokje, Chief Editor of BioSpectrum Asia, said that Taiwan has an abundant amount of new innovations. Biotechnology industry innovation in India and Asia is booming, he said and added that he looks forward to cooperation between the two media platforms to connect Asia's biotechnology industry capacity in the future.