United BioPharma holds an inauguration ceremony marking the opening of its new manufacturing plant

United BioPharma (UBP, 6471) held an inauguration ceremony to mark the opening of its new manufacturing plant today. The completion of the manufacturing plant is the latest milestone in the development of United BioPharma and the Taiwanese biotechnology industry. The new building is located in the Hsinchu Industrial Park. It has eight floors and covers a total area of 22000 square meters. The best R & D facilities and highest technology belonging to United BioPharma are encompassed in this building. The initial production capacity was 4,500 liters of protein drugs with a future expansion up to 24,000 liters of protein drugs. For now, it has the best production capacity and the most advanced technology in comparison to, other companies in Taiwan. The completion of the factory will allow the company to provide for the unmet production of protein drugs in Taiwan. UBP’s president Dr. Mei-June Liao said: “This plant has been designed by GE HealthCare to adopt the single use process technology. Less cleaning of the single-use technology can reduce cross contamination during batch changeover. This technology reduces production costs, and production planning can be more flexible to accommodate different needs. In addition, the manufacturing plant of United BioPharma is supplied with the most advanced R & D equipment and the company has widespread capabilities that drug development needs. This assists in the continual advancement of our products. UBP’s executive director, Dr. Shugene Lynn said that United BioPharma received the GMP Pilot plant from UBIAsia and has successfully pushed several products forward to clinical trials. UB-421, anti-HIV antibody for AIDS, is going to conduct a phase III clinical trial in different countries. The new manufacturing plant will provide the drug needs for these clinical trials and marketing. It is also a solution to the drug shortage of United BioPharma and the bottleneck of biotechnology manufacturing in Taiwan. People expected that biotechnology would be flourishing in Taiwan since we have been promoting it for more than three decades. Our chairman, Dr. Chang- Yi Wang said “the problem of Taiwan biotechnology is that the R & D companies in Taiwan are small. These small companies are not sufficient to provide production, job opportunity and the international influence. Manufacturing is the foundation of business growth, especially in biotechnology, because it requires higher technology and rigorous regulations for production. She also said, we should increase our investment to those biotech companies who already have the capabilities of R & D and manufacturing. Only companies with all those capabilities can organize international resources in R & D, manufacture and sell high potential drugs and then increase job opportunities. Expanding production would support and sustain Biotech in Taiwan. It took more than three years and cost 1.5 billion in investments to create highly integrated R & D ability and manufacturing platforms. We would cooperate with international teams to promote drug development and marketing. We have strategic alliances with most leading pharmaceutical companies in the world to accelerate the launch of our leading product, UB421.”