Analysis: What Taiwan's Regenerative Medicine Laws Mean
Taiwan has new laws on regenerative medicine that could bring change to the country.
Chen Wannhsin of the Taiwan Association for Cellular Therapy explains what the legislation means.
Chen Wannhsin of the Taiwan Association for Cellular Therapy explains what the legislation means.
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00:00 The legislature has passed two bills on regenerative medicine, that's a branch of medicine that
00:05 includes cell and gene therapies.
00:08 The move follows nine years of lobbying to make these treatments more widely available
00:12 here in Taiwan.
00:13 The new laws limit these therapies to medical institutions, meaning private companies may
00:17 not offer them.
00:19 They also protect donors from having their cells taken forcibly and ban the use of fetal
00:24 cells.
00:25 Most new therapies need to go through human trials in Taiwan before official approval.
00:29 But experimental cell and gene therapies will be allowed in the case of serious illness
00:34 where there are no other options.
00:38 To find out more about the new laws and what changes they could bring, John Ventriess spoke
00:42 to Tseng Wan-Hsing of the Taiwan Association for Cellular Therapy.
00:46 How long has there been a demand for laws governing this sort of medicine?
00:50 "The patients keep telling me that there are a lot of immunotherapy treatments that cost money to go to Japan or Korea. They spend a million dollars to go for treatment. They keep telling me that the treatment is very effective. Why is Taiwan's medical technology so advanced and not open?"
01:10 "So in 2019, 2020, the patient groups started to think about it."
01:21 Why are laws on regenerative medicine so important?
01:23 And what do these two laws bring in terms of change?
01:26 "If we do cell therapy properly, it will be a new way or method for patients who have no alternative.
01:40 We have done it in the underground. When you walk around, you will hear friends saying, 'Go get a liver transplant!' We are all very shocked. But in that case, if we use the regenerative medicine method yesterday, we can really have a very powerful law on that side.
02:10 I hope that we can stop this phenomenon."