Taiwan Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng Taiwan News 2011-12-15 TAIPEI (Taiwan News) – Legislative Speaker Wang Jin-pyng said Thursday that Democratic Progressive Party Chairwoman Tsai Ing-wen brought Academia Sinica President Wong Chi-huey and National Science Council Chairman Chen Chien-jen along to present him with a biotechnology legislative draft when she was still vice premier. Tsai, who is running for president in the January 14 election, is fighting off Kuomintang allegations that she approved government investment in Yu Chang Biologics Co. in 2007 while she knew she would head the firm. Wong has supported Tsai's statements that she only took up the company's chairmanship months after she left the government at the invitation of several prominent scientists, including Wong himself. According to speaker Wang, a prominent KMT member, the legislative proposal included tax benefits, the training of biotech talent, intellectual property rights, and advantages for shareholders. Wong apparently also said that public officials could hold a certain type of shares in biotech companies, Wang said. He denied having written the legislative proposal together with Tsai and said there probably wasn't a conflict of interest for the then-premier. Wang praised the law as one that benefited the whole country since it promoted Taiwan's biotechnology sector. He said he could not know however how companies and individuals used the law once it was passed. The speaker said he didn't know what Tsai did, and whether or not there were problems with her actions and procedures. He wasn't aware of what had happened so he could not comment, the Chinese-language United Evening News quoted Wang as saying. At the time, Taiwan's biotechnology sector was almost dying, but the law gave it a new breath of life, in particular concerning the launch of new drugs, Wang said. More than 20 types of medicine from Taiwan were under review by the United States Food and Drug Administration.
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