Gene Bio Medical, a biotechnology company focusing on the diagnostics and point-of-care testing industries based in Vancouver, is eyeing to expand its geographic exposure worldwide with its current key markets such as Canada, the UK, Hong Kong, and UAE.
To do so, Gene Bio Medical is working with Canada's Trade Commissioner Service (TCS) to carry out plans to expand its presence in different markets. The B2B sector is the company's essential source of business, but it also enjoys orders from the B2G channel, a sector in which the company directly supplies medical products to governments worldwide. The company had received many orders from government tenders during the COVID-19 pandemic, said Gene Bio Medical Chief of Staff Ian Yang.
The company has also been eagerly cultivating the B2B2C channel by actively engaging with pharmacists and distribution channels to put its products onto store shelves.
In addition to the different business channels, the company offers its products via e-commerce platforms and online stores to reach customers. Consumers and businesses can use these channels to easily purchase its diagnostic focus products such as antigen rapid tests, medical care equipment, and lab-use and industry equipment.
Unlike many companies, Gene Bio Medical can handle all types of items and tasks such as raw materials, manufacturing, R&D, product commercialization, and sales distribution, making it a full-service full-chain biotech firm. Despite all its capabilities, the company focuses on three main tasks - biomanufacturing, R&D, and sales - as it has been actively contracting with its manufacturing partners and sending in-house trained staff to the partners' facilities to assist with production.
Gene Bio Medical is also engaged with many universities to conduct advanced R&D and is cultivating deeply in its established B2B, B2C, and B2B2C channels.
For what helps Gene Bio Medical to stand out from its competitors in terms of products and technologies, the company is most proud of its made-in-Canada biomanufacturing since many of its competitors import products from Asia Pacific, Mexico, or countries with lower labor costs. On the contrary, Gene Bio Medical has over 51% of its products manufactured in Canada.
The second differentiator is its market-to-lab business model. Over 90% of standard biotech companies' business models are considered lab to market, in which the companies will come out with a great idea, concept, or R&D and then commercialize it without really understanding what the market and end users need. However, Gene Bio Medical is taking the opposite approach.
The company's approach is to understand the market's demand first by offering end users services first and then go back to the company's innovators for them to develop something that can satisfy the demand.
Although the COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down recently, it will not fade away as the variants of the virus continue to emerge and affect the population. What's unique about Gene Bio Medical's products is that they can perform tests effectively no matter which variants the users were infected, as the company has been constantly updating its portfolio to have tests always display the most accurate results.
For 2024 and beyond, the company is now working on digital-enabled healthcare, a new trend for the healthcare or medical tech industries. The company has already devoted effort to developing a digital point-of-care testing portal that will allow pharmacists to transmit data to family physicians for the patient to test on-site or the patient can purchase a subscription to perform tests at home and then transmit data to their doctors.
Gene Bio Medical is still a relatively new company, only having been operational for two years. Therefore, it has not yet formed a partnership with any Taiwanese company. However, it has worked closely with the Taiwan Chamber of Commerce in Canada and has previously had some meaningful conversations and discussions with some of its members in Canada.
The company is also actively seeking new partners in Asia Pacific, eyeing the region's potential in market demand. The company's bio-manufacturing experience and IPs are also valuable assets for it to expand in the biotech landscape of Taiwan.
For partnerships, Gene Bio Medical is mainly looking for three types of candidates. The first is channel distributors that can help the company enter into the local government procurement, B2B or B2B2C channels, and connect with local pharmacies. Secondly, the company is seeking different advanced R&D opportunities with universities or independent researchers to create synergy together, and such collaboration may need to go through local commissioners or partners that can help us bring our technologies to other countries.
The third type is a partner that can assist Gene Bio Medical to cross into different industries such as agriculture, business, and clean tech businesses in need of Gene Bio Medical's technology.
For horizontal partnerships, the company has been working with the government for clean tech environmental and agriculture-use testing tools pioneering the industry.
Gene Bio Medical currently has a very balanced revenue mix. Around 60-70% of revenues are from product-related sales, including diagnostic tests and medical industry equipment, while the remaining 30% is from consultation services. Consultation services are a meaningful business for International companies. If they wish to enter into Canada's medical care business, Gene Bio Medical can provide consulting to help them pass regulations or perform business clinical trials in Canada,
The medical industry equipment's IPs are owned by the company and obtained via collaboration with universities. Universities develop the method for testing, and then Gene Bio Medical commercializes the products. Such partnership allows the company to have arrangements with different university and academic partners, and all of the medical industry equipment products' IPs on our website belong to the company, Yang added.
