The National Health Research Institute (NHRI) inaugurated the Central Office of Biobank, a platform for the integration of bio databases.  Dr. Liang Kung-Yee, the President of the NHRI, expressed that the Biobank, based on the integration of big data and NHI database, will play an important role in the development of precision medicine in Taiwan.

Many high-ranking officials attended the inauguration ceremony, including the Deputy Minister of the MOHW, the Director of the Department of the Pharmaceutical Affairs of the MOHW, the President and Vice President of the NHRI, the Director of the Board of Science and Technology of the Executive Yuan and the CEO of the Platform.

The Academia Sinica started planning for the creation of a biobank in 2003.  Since the Human Biobank Management Act passed legislation in 2010, the MOHW has approved 33 biobanks.

Those 33 approved biobanks are managed by 29 hospitals and 4 non-hospital organizations, including the Academia Sinica, the NHRI, the Tainan City Municipal Government and a private health check center.  Together, they have collected over 310,000 records of bio data.  More new biobanks are on the way.

However, the specimens collected by the various biobanks are usually not compatible.  This prevents the potential of such a big database from being fully exploited.  The Executive Yuan, hence, requested the MOHW and the NHRI to create a platform for the integration of all biobanks and establish a consistent quality standard.   

【2020-10-12 / Economic Daily】