Big pharma is increasingly turning to Taiwan to leverage the power of the country’s data and computing power as precision medicine takes center stage in drug development, speakers said during the recent BIO Asia-Taiwan conference in Taipei.

Keeping innovation growing at a fast clip while retaining new global supply chain capacity built up during the pandemic were the main topics of discussion at the Bio Asia-Taiwan conference July 27 in Taipei. With the theme of the conference, “Connecting the Asia Value Chain,” Taiwan Vice President Ching-Te Lai said the pandemic has demonstrated Taiwan’s resilience as well as the strength of the global biopharma industry.

Oncologica Ltd. is expanding its testing service to include an at-home molecular immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibody allergy test. The Cambridge, U.K.-based precision medicine company said the new Allergyfocus test can detect 99% of globally known allergens from a finger prick blood sample. The IgE test provides a personalized antibody profile of allergy triggers such as different foods, pollen, mould or animals.

Type 2 diabetes is known to involve many different underlying mechanisms, but the considerable heterogeneity in the phenotype is mostly ignored in how it is treated. Now, researchers at University of Dundee, U.K., have developed a method for visualizing this heterogeneity and shown how the risks of complications, such as chronic kidney disease or peripheral neuropathy, differ by phenotypes.

Pangea Biomed Ltd. picked up $7 million in seed financing to fast-track development of its multicancer, multitherapy response predictor Enlight. The platform combines machine learning and RNA sequencing to map tumor molecular signatures and predict how different cancer types will respond to oncology drugs. Pangea said instead of using transcriptomic data, it is utilizing ‘unsupervised’ AI techniques that harvest information about gene interactions.

Neuron23 Inc. came out of stealth mode in late 2020 with a $113.5 million combined series A and B round to support its AI-enabled drug discovery effort aimed at bringing a precision medicine approach to neuroimmunology. Now it has added another $100 million in a series C financing as it gears up to move into clinical testing with lead programs targeting LRRK2 and TYK2.