How Much Money Will "Medigen Family" Test Kits Make？
United Daily News Editorial, May 1, 2022
On April 29 before the Labor Day long weekend, many pharmacies on Taiwan were anxiously waiting for the delivery of coronavirus (COVID-19) rapid test kits, but the miracle did not happen; at the same time, President Tsai Ing-wen posted on her Facebook photos of her visiting a used book store a decade ago, and many people admired that unlike ordinary people, Tsai remained very calm. Unexpectedly, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Ministry of Health and Welfare, did deliver a miracle by announcing the approval of importation of Korean-made saliva rapid test kits, and amazingly these rare goods come from the Medigen Vaccine Biologics Corporation family. The 23 million people in Taiwan always encounter Medigen when the pandemic situation resurges. This company sold the most expensive vaccines globally last year, and it remains unknown whether it will create another international record.
When the pandemic was out of control and confirmed cases broke 5,000, Premier Su Tseng-chang abruptly decided to shorten the time for the contacted persons to three days of quarantine, followed by four days of self-monitoring. After the measure was implemented, more than tens of thousands confirmed and contacted cases have been reported daily and the country is in turmoil. PCR testing failed to keep up with the virus, and the rapid tests, which were once disdained by the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC), suddenly became rare commodities, and incredibly the Tsai administration lowered the prices. Coincidentally, when the nose and purse of the people were badly hurt by the nasal tests, saliva test kits to be imported by Taiwan’s Schweitzer Biotech Company (SBC) appeared on the stage. There is no need for advertisement, both the demand and the price for the saliva test kits are marvelous.
Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung’s forward deployment was to wait for the specific seller of the test kits to enter the scene. The person who really deployed beforehand is Chen Tsang-chien, the general manager of Medigen, who prepared the vaccines on one hand and the test kits on the other hand.
SBC will import the saliva test kits from South Korea and SBC is the second largest shareholder of Medigen. Mr. Chen Tsang-chien, the founder and legal representative of SBC is Medigen’s vice chairman and general manager. When netizens questioned “Why it is Chen again”, Minister Chen only commented that “This is irrelevant”; Premier Su said “We should respect the professionalism”. But professionalism should not be limited to Medigen alone. The FDA had approved five brands of saliva test kits to be handled by medical professionals, including locally made kits by technology transfer from the Industrial Technology and Research Institute (ITRI). Although these products are to be handled by medical personnel, if the manufacturers had “people inside” who knew that the CECC would permit the saliva tests, they could have developed home-use saliva test kits earlier.
The CECC had used internal propaganda to promote the “national team to fight the pandemic”, but except for Medigen, it does not genuinely support other local companies. Medigen sold vaccines last year and developed test kits, while SBC established testing clinics to handle the tests for airports and governmental cases, they had smart calculations. The SBC has foresight about importing Korean-made saliva test kits, for unless the SBC had already concluded the agency agreement with Philosys Corporation, how could SBC apply for the approval of the saliva tests with the FDA a week ago?
The Korean-made test kits did not obtain use permit from South Korea; the manufacturer is a small and medium sized company and was planned by the Korean government to export its products abroad, lest it should compete with major companies in the domestic market. Philosys obtained use permits from Malaysia and Argentina in later part of last year and sold the products mainly in Southeast Asia and South America, including Paraguay where Medigen conducted clinical tests of its vaccines.
When the Omicron variant began to rage at the end of last year, there was huge demand for rapid test kits globally. As Australia needed the kits urgently, many Chinese makers of the test kits applied for use permits, so did Philosys. Philosys obtained use permit in February last year, but it did not sell the kits in Australia. However, with Australia’s approval, the test kits made by Philosys will enter the Taiwan market smoothly.
Taiwan’s local makers of saliva test kits have applied for use permits with FDA. Intriguingly, it is to be seen how much hard time will FDA give to these competitors? If Medigen came out as the only winner, then the price tag definitely would not be modest.