American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine (ACRM)

Advancement in precision medicine - the challenges and opportunities in this promising sector and updates in clinical research

The 2017 Regional Asian Clinical Trial Association (REACTA) conference was held in Malaysia from September 27 to 29. Taipei Medical University (TMU) was represented by Dr. Hsien-Ying Sung, Deputy Director of the Joint Clinical Trial Center, and Dr. Kuan-Chou Chen, Director of the Institute of Clinical Medicine. The conference mainly discussed the clinical trial development experiences of member countries over the past four to five years, and it was hoped that from this year onward, there would be greater collaboration on multi-country, multi-center physician-initiated clinical trials (PI-initiated Trials, IITs).

The East Asia Clinical Trial Alliance was initially founded by Dr. Chien-Chuan Yeh, former Deputy Director of Taipei Medical University Hospital, in collaboration with doctors from Japan and South Korea. When it was established in 2013, the focus was mainly on discussing the development of each organization and the establishment of independent clinical trial units. As the alliance has grown, countries such as Singapore and Malaysia have joined, fostering cooperation and advancing international multi-center clinical trial platforms. The alliance has three main objectives: developing clinical trials in Asia to align with global standards, exchanging information and supporting each other to build trial capacities, and leveraging the alliance's strength to promote multi-country, multi-center physician-initiated trials.

During the 2017 REACTA conference, Dr. Sung introduced TMU’s Joint Clinical Trial Center and the various ways in which TMU supports IITs. South Korea emphasized that the global clinical trial market is rapidly changing. The traditional model of pharmaceutical companies independently developing new drugs has been shrinking due to high failure rates. This has led to increased collaboration with academic institutions to develop new drugs, aiming to reduce investment costs and failure risks. The key to being selected by pharmaceutical companies as a partner in new drug development is the institution's ability to conduct multi-country, multi-center IITs.

Dr. Irene Looi from Malaysia signed an international collaboration memorandum with TMU for an IIT project, which will be conducted at Wan Fang Hospital, focusing on a new drug trial for stroke. Additionally, a clinical trial in collaboration with Chiba University in Japan and the United States will be conducted not only at Chiba University and East Asia University in Korea but also at TMU, greatly enhancing TMU’s international clinical trial experience.

This year, Malaysia hosted both the REACTA conference and their annual National Conference of Clinical Research (NCCR). The theme of the NCCR focused on precision medicine, with discussions centered around liver cancer, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, breast cancer, and obesity. Although Malaysia is still in the early stages of clinical trials, they have adopted a model where the Ministry of Health leads the initiative, with public hospitals across regions serving as the base for nationwide clinical trials. This approach has proven more efficient in building research capacity compared to Taiwan, where individual hospitals develop clinical trials independently. TMU has successfully secured the hosting rights for the 2018 REACTA conference and aims to showcase the strengths of the university and its three affiliated hospitals. The goal is to cultivate leaders with the capability to oversee international IIT projects, which will be crucial for TMU to secure a leading position in the global clinical trial arena amid increasing competition.