Taiwan Startups Advance to US BIO Finals: Pharmasaga Reaches Championship Round
[translated from Chinese]
The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) led 14 top-tier Taiwanese biomedical startups to the BIO International Convention (US BIO), held in San Diego, USA, from June 13th to 16th. On the 15th, the MoST's Department of Industry-Academia Collaboration hosted a local Smart Health Demo Day to facilitate networking and matching between international VCs, accelerators, enterprises, and Taiwanese startups. Furthermore, Pharmasaga stood out from hundreds of global startups, advancing to the finals of the Convention's flagship competition, the Start-up Stadium.
In the Start-Up Stadium finals, held for global startups at BIO, [Number] startups made it to the finals, with only four teams originating outside the United States. Two of those four teams were from Taiwan: Pharmasaga and Magsis Bio. This marks the first time since US BIO began in 2017 that a Taiwanese startup team has entered the finals, signaling increasing international recognition for Taiwan's biomedical innovation.
Pharmasaga was established in January 2021 as a spin-off startup from Academia Sinica through the MoST's Value Creation Program. The technology originates from Dr. Wen-Ching Yang, the CEO of the Herbal Technology Research Special Project Center at the Agricultural Biotechnology Research Center. The company focuses on developing innovative drugs with the potential to cure diabetes.
Pharmasaga focuses its research on Pdia4, which is associated with diabetes progression and beta-cell failure. The company further screened and synthesized PS001 from natural compounds, serving as a specific small-molecule inhibitor of Pdia4. PS001 showed excellent efficacy in animal trials. The drug has already obtained Investigational New Drug (IND) clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is undergoing clinical trials at National Taiwan University Hospital, with trial completion anticipated in September 2022. The company plans to expand indications to include autoimmune diseases and cancer in the future.
(The image shows Pharmasaga exhibiting at the Taiwan Pavilion during the North American BIO Convention.)