The MOHW and the NHRI jointly announced the project of the National Biobank Integration Platform, aiming to establish a mega databank by pooling the data from 31 hospitals together.  Dr Chen Shih-Chung, the MOHW Minister, pointed out that this platform, together with the Human Biobank Management Act which passed the legislation 8 years ago and the Human Biobank established by the Academia Sinica, are the three pillars supporting the development of regenerative medicine, precision medicine and smart medicine in Taiwan.

The MOHW held a ceremony to introduce the Biobank Integration Platform.  Dr Chen Chien-Jen, Vice President, said in the ceremony about his experiences and involvement in tracking and surveying 200,000 adults for the establishment of a biobank.  However, at that time, the data was retained by individual hospitals without being integrated, said Vice President Chen.

After years of development, the industry is demanding a national biobank.  The data integration will be rolled out soon.  Wu Tsung-tsong, the Minister without Portfolio of Executive Yuan, promised to support the integration.   Once the integration completes, Taiwan will have the first biobank in the world holding the health data of over 23 million people.

At present, human specimens are held by a number of biobanks in various sizes.  The access application procedure is too complicated to make the best use of the data.  The national biobank aims to integrate 31 biobanks and provide a one-stop window for the access to the data.  The MOHW hopes a simplified access application procedure will assist the new drug and new treatment researches in Taiwan.

It is estimated that the national biobank will have 4.5 million specimens of 460,000 people.  In the future, it will further include the NHI data, cancer records, rare disease databanks, etc. to improve the data efficiency. 

【2019-10-30 / United Daily News 】