The Ministry of Science and Technology recently held the 2019 Future Technology Exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Center. This future technology exhibition encouraged academic professors to apply the results of their research and development to industrial product and set up new companies on campus. After reviewing various entrepreneurial cases by members of the industry-academia research community, 14 successful entrepreneurial cases were grandly recommended this year and won the Academic Pioneer Award, which was personally presented by President Ing-Wen Tsai. Among the 14 award-winning universities, most are national universities. The only private university that won the award was Chair Professor Yi-Ren Su from the Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology and the founder of Merry Life Biomedical Corp., Ltd.
【2019 Academic Pioneer Award at Future Science and Technology Exhibition invited award-winners to take a group photo】
Merry Life Biomedical Corp., Ltd, established on October 5, 2018, is a new biotechnology company derived from Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology. The founder, Professor Yi-Ren Su, is a Taiwanese scholar from San Diego California, who signed a contract with Dr. Chiu-Yang Shih (from Prof. Guo-Shiong Lee's team at the University of North Carolina) for more than ten patented compounds of Androscience (ASC) as well a contract for MTA cooperative development. Making use of the six Alzheimer's disease (AD) and liver cancer biomarker platforms developed by the team's laboratory, Prof. Su developed the candidate compound ASC # 6 selected from these patent compounds for preclinical efficacy and toxicology experiments of AD. In 2017, his team won the NT$ 20 million funding support from the Ministry of Science and Technology to carry out preclinical efficacy and toxicological safety experiments of ASC # 6 candidate compounds. On September 26, 2018, ASC # 6 met all the drug development standards under the biological pharmacological mechanism, AD transgenic rat efficacy, pharmacokinetics, and preliminary toxicology. This plan was approved by the Ministry of Science and Technology to establish a derivative company from Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, called Merry Life Biomedical Corp., Ltd.
【Chair Professor Yi-Ren Su from the Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, won the Academic Pioneer Award at the 2019 Future Science and Technology Exhibition. The award was president by Ing-Wen Tsai (left) to Mrs. Her-Huei Chang Su on behalf of Prof Su】
Drugs for Alzheimer's disease (AD) are one of the most urgently needed drugs in the world. In 2015, there were 6 million people with Alzheimer's symptoms in the United States and 270,000 in Taiwan. There will be about 60 million patients in 2020, and the rate will increase by 5% every year. The market opportunities will reach 10 billion US dollars every year. With the increase of the aging population, the market demand is constantly expanding, and it is regarded as the largest pharmaceutical market in the world.
【Chair Professor Yi-Ren Su of the Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, won the Academic Pioneer Award at the 2019 Future Science and Technology Exhibition】
At present, AD has low side effects, and the long-term use of chronic drugs is very limited. Mild patients have a particularly urgent need for reversible or curative drugs. The pre-clinical experimental data of ASC # 6 developed by Professor Su meet the current standards of AD multipath efficacy and low side effects. It is a potential drug of AD in the first class, and it will exclusively occupy this market. ASC # 6 has applied for multi-national patents, will focus on the United States, Japan, Europe, and China as its main markets, and will authorize international manufacturers to cooperate and market together. In the next five years (before 2023), clinical trials will be completed as soon as possible through precise planning, subject to related regulations.
Deng-Maw Lu, President of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, said that the Department of Biotechnology, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, has been renamed the Department of Biotechnology and Food Technology since the 108 academic year. One of the important research directions is to enhance the tradition through food processing and biotechnology by raising the efficacy of food and medicine homologous food. Professor Su has been investing in curcumin research in recent years, and now finally it has blossomed and great achievement. The traditional curcumin health effects have been successfully introduced into the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. It is an important step in the development and pursuit of human happiness.