At an investment forum held at Taipei's Sheraton Hotel on Tuesday, seven Canadian and American biomedical companies gave business presentations to the Taiwan biotechnology community.

Participants in the Monte Jade Life Sciences Asia Discovery Mission 2005 assemble together with various Taiwan biotechnology industry notables during the delegation's Taiwan visit, April 18, 2005.

Companies giving presentations at the forum included Inex, Medical Ventures, Perceptronix, MDS Nordion, iMEDD, Innovise and Inovio Biomedical.

Inovio, a biomedical corporation developing cancer and other disease therapies based on electroporation therapy, focuses on treating solid tumors by enhancing the effectiveness of the chemotherapeutic treatment. During the company's presentation, Inovio's president and CEO, Avtar Dhillon, pointed out the importance of treating the tumor without the need for excess tissue removal.

"The personal cost of tissue removal can sometime mean the difference between wanting to live or die to an elderly cancer patient. We believe our product will offer cancer sufferers more options," he said.

Inovio currently has two Phase 3 clinical trials ongoing in the US.

Perceptronix is a cancer diagnostics company based in Vancouver that specializes in early detection systems for cancer. David Garner, the President and COO of Perceptronix, spoke about the strong potential in this market, estimating the current total annual cancer diagnostic market in North America and the EU as being around US$8 billion.

IMedd is an early stage biomedical company developing improved drug delivery and medical products based on bioMEMS, microfabrication, and nanotechnology.

IMedd’s president Carl Grove spoke about their newly developed NanoGATE, a small cylindrical implant inserted under the skin that acts as a long term drug delivery system, and the potential it offers proprietary drug makers to extend their product's market lifetime.

Medical Ventures, a medical device company based out of Canada, focused on offering unique devices in the medical device products in the area of cardiovascular medical devices, and specifically pointed out the benefits of their newly developed mid-range low-pressure balloon catheter.

The forum was well represented by local venture capitalists, biotech players as well as representatives of foreign companies.

Overseas participants expressed their hopefulness at finding both manufacturing and collaboration opportunities in Taiwan, citing Taiwan's existing expertise in precision engineering as well as existing manufacturing base as reasons for optimism.

Several of the participating businesses have plans, or stated their intentions of proceeding with clinical trials through local Taiwan hospitals.