Electronics maker Qisda Corp (佳世達) and TCI Co (大江生醫), which manufactures health food, functional beverages and skincare products, on Friday said that they would form a strategic alliance through a private placement.
Under the deal, Qisda plans to acquire 4.72 million shares in a TCI subsidiary, TCI Gene Inc (大江基因), at NT$115.5 per share, the company’s regulatory filing showed on Friday.
TCI Gene is mainly engaged in the research and manufacturing of various genetic testing, stem cell and immune cell products.
Photo: Chen Mei-ying, Taipei Times
The NT$545.16 million (US$18.38 million) investment would allow Qisda to hold a 17.84 percent stake in TCI Gene, using its own capital to fund the deal, the filing said.
“To strengthen the company’s biotechnology business, Qisda has stepped into the field of precision medicine,” the company said in the filing. “Through this investment, we will complement each other’s resources, expand the biotechnology and medical care business, and provide customers with a wider range of products and services.”
Qisda manufactures computer accessories, communication devices and consumer electronics. It also provides consulting and technical services, and has cultivated a high-value-added medical business, which has been the firm’s best performer during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Precision medicine is an emerging model in which precise detection prevents diseases in their early stages, and treats them with specific medicines. The practice provides treatment that most accurately minimizes adverse drug reactions and avoids wasting medical resources, it said.
A PricewaterhouseCoopers report on the precision health industry said that the market is forecast to grow from US$68.3 billion in 2020 to US$134.4 billion in 2025, with a compound annual growth rate of 14 percent.
The genetic testing market, which is the basis of precision medicine, has attracted much attention, Qisda said.
The market potential for this segment is predicted to grow from US$8 billion last year to US$15.8 billion in 2030, with compound growth of 7.6 percent, it said, citing data from Precedence Research.
The application of cell therapy in precision medicine should also have high growth potential, it added.
Precision medicine is an emerging business suitable for technology firms, as it is expected to integrate new technologies such as genetic testing, immune cell therapy and artificial intelligence, Qisda chairman Peter Chen (陳其宏) said.
“We look forward to providing more accurate preventive medicine, precise diagnosis and treatment services to the public through cooperation with TCI Group (大江生醫集團),” Chen said in a statement.
TCI Group chairman Vincent Lin (林詠翔) said he expects to leverage the strength of Qisda in medical services, equipment, pharmaceutical access and big data solutions to increase TCI Gene’s products and testing services.
IN THE AIR: While most companies said they were committed to North American operations, some added that production and costs would depend on the outcome of a US trade probe Leading local contract electronics makers Wistron Corp (緯創), Quanta Computer Inc (廣達), Inventec Corp (英業達) and Compal Electronics Inc (仁寶) are to maintain their North American expansion plans, despite Washington’s 20 percent tariff on Taiwanese goods. Wistron said it has long maintained a presence in the US, while distributing production across Taiwan, North America, Southeast Asia and Europe. The company is in talks with customers to align capacity with their site preferences, a company official told the Taipei Times by telephone on Friday. The company is still in talks with clients over who would bear the tariff costs, with the outcome pending further
NEGOTIATIONS: Semiconductors play an outsized role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development and are a major driver of the Taiwan-US trade imbalance With US President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductors, Taiwan is expected to face a significant challenge, as information and communications technology (ICT) products account for more than 70 percent of its exports to the US, Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) said on Friday. Compared with other countries, semiconductors play a disproportionately large role in Taiwan’s industrial and economic development, Lien said. As the sixth-largest contributor to the US trade deficit, Taiwan recorded a US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US last year — up from US$47.8 billion in 2023 — driven by strong
A proposed 100 percent tariff on chip imports announced by US President Donald Trump could shift more of Taiwan’s semiconductor production overseas, a Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) researcher said yesterday. Trump’s tariff policy will accelerate the global semiconductor industry’s pace to establish roots in the US, leading to higher supply chain costs and ultimately raising prices of consumer electronics and creating uncertainty for future market demand, Arisa Liu (劉佩真) at the institute’s Taiwan Industry Economics Database said in a telephone interview. Trump’s move signals his intention to "restore the glory of the US semiconductor industry," Liu noted, saying that
AI: Softbank’s stake increases in Nvidia and TSMC reflect Masayoshi Son’s effort to gain a foothold in key nodes of the AI value chain, from chip design to data infrastructure Softbank Group Corp is building up stakes in Nvidia Corp and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), the latest reflection of founder Masayoshi Son’s focus on the tools and hardware underpinning artificial intelligence (AI). The Japanese technology investor raised its stake in Nvidia to about US$3 billion by the end of March, up from US$1 billion in the prior quarter, regulatory filings showed. It bought about US$330 million worth of TSMC shares and US$170 million in Oracle Corp, they showed. Softbank’s signature Vision Fund has also monetized almost US$2 billion of public and private assets in the first half of this year,
RSS