Materia Medica Malaysiana

Local Experts Told To Commercialise Biotechnology Products

Biotechnology researchers, especially from local universities, have been urged to commercialise their products which could penetrate the world market.
Minister of Higher Education Datuk Dr Shafie Mohd Salleh said only five percent of the findings of local experts had been commercialised so far despite the huge world market which amounted to US$19 billion.
He said although Malaysia was new in this field, its expertise, especially those in institutions of higher learning, were at par with their foreign counterparts.
"Our experts have made many valuable discoveries in this field. The latest is a "marker" discovered by a group of researchers from the Institute for Research in Molecular Medicine (INFORMM) Universiti Sains Malaysia (USM), which is currently being marketed in several countries."
The government was happy with these achievements and would allocate more funds for such research, he told reporters after launching INFORMM, here, Sunday.
INFORMM director Professor Asma Ismail said the institute carried out "cutting-edge" research such as on diagnostic, vaccinology, disease mechanism, Innovative Therapy and tissue engineering.
The Institute had also patented five other products. They include a Typhoid tracking kit which only needed 15 minutes to trace the deadly disease. This kit is currently in the market.
She said licences for the other four were "being processed". They were a kit for tracing paratyphoid, tuberculosis, cholera and malaria.
She said the kits were more practical and easily used and they were being sold in Pakistan, India, South Africa, China and the Philippines.