Digitalization is unstoppable, technological epidemic prevention ensures healthy living with strict safeguards.
Digitalization is unstoppable, technological epidemic prevention ensures healthy living with strict safeguards.
Recently, the Omicron variant of the COVID-19 virus has swept the globe once again. A variety of preventive products such as masks, alcohol, hygiene cleaning supplies, air purifiers, ultraviolet sterilization lamps, and thermometer devices have once again become hot commodities in the market. As consumers' attention towards the epidemic increases, various reports related to epidemic prevention gain high visibility, leading many brands to utilize relevant content for product marketing to enhance brand exposure.
Since 2020, social distancing and home quarantine policies implemented to reduce virus transmission have spurred a boom in online services and home business opportunities. Sales related to food, clothing, housing, transportation, and entertainment have gradually shifted towards a "digitalized" business model. Although the epidemic has changed people's daily lives and work patterns, it has also led to the rise of epidemic prevention technology, fostering new developments in innovative products, services, and business models, promoting the emergence of a "contactless economy."
This issue's cover story "Product Edition" features an interview with Titanium Falcon Biotechnology Co., Ltd., which has launched the "Automatic Nasopharyngeal Sampling Robot NSR" ahead of the market.
The company integrates multiple innovative technologies and equipment, and has established "contactless epidemic prevention sampling stations" in 18 hospitals across Taiwan. The high-intensity ultraviolet sterilization lamp independently designed and developed by Longfu Aviation has been certified and adopted by many domestic food and beverage giants, becoming a cooperative supplier of Titanium Falcon's "contactless epidemic prevention sampling stations." In the future, it will continue to focus on the home product market to launch more diversified innovative epidemic prevention products.
Titanium Falcon Biotechnology Launches 100% Contactless Epidemic Prevention Sampling Station
In addition to being the CEO of Titanium Falcon Biotechnology Co., Ltd. (Brain Navi Biotechnology Co., Ltd.), Chen Chieh-Hsiao also holds multiple titles such as attending physician in the Urology Department of China Medical University Beigang Hospital and a Ph.D. in medical engineering. He states that he has loved to express rich imagination since childhood, and after becoming a doctor, he has experience and ideas about the use of medical equipment. After studying for half a year at Stanford University in the U.S. in 2012, he decided to start a business with classmates, leading to the establishment of Ansheng Biotechnology. In 2015, he started a second venture, establishing Titanium Falcon Biotechnology Co., Ltd.
Dedicated Robots Perform High-Precision Medical Actions
Chen Chieh-Hsiao believes that "the advancement of future medicine will definitely rely on current doctors passing on all their know-how in digital form to the next generation of doctors, so the experience of medical digitization is very important." Future doctors will be able to engage in diagnostic judgment and medical actions in a more precise and efficient manner with the assistance of innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), big data, and medical robots. Titanium Falcon Biotechnology launched the world's first "Automatic Brain Surgery Navigation Robot NaoTrac" in 2018, which uses machine vision for navigation to select the safest path for brain diseases, reaching lesions with minimal trauma and the most direct and precise techniques, greatly reducing the risks of bleeding and nerve damage. In 2020, in response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, it launched the world's first "Automatic Nasopharyngeal Sampling Robot NSR" ahead of the market.
Chen Chieh-Hsiao states that existing medical robots can generally be divided into two main categories: remote-controlled and dedicated types. For instance, the Da Vinci surgical robot falls under the remote-controlled medical robot category, and because the robotic arm completely replicates the operator's actions, the effectiveness of surgery still depends on the intricacy of the operator's movements. Dedicated medical robots are those designed for specific departments or surgeries, which do not require overly complicated operations but must possess high precision; therefore, most actions are executed by the machines, such as knee replacement robots, ROSA robots, Mazor robots, and Titanium Falcon Biotechnology's NaoTrac all belong to this category of medical robots.
Epidemic Prevention Responsibility: Titanium Falcon's Sampling Stations Favored by TSMC
Speaking of the growth from 3 employees, a 6-ping office and a startup capital of 10 million NTD at the company’s founding to the current 30 employees, a 200-ping office, and raising up to 300 million NTD, Chen Chieh-Hsiao mentions that the chairman of China Medical University, Tsai Chang-Hai, is the company's first angel investor. The company's research department is primarily responsible for developing and producing new technologies and products that may cause significant changes or impacts on the market from scratch. Currently, the team comprises cross-disciplinary professionals with backgrounds in medical engineering, mechanics, software and hardware design, and industrial design.
In March 2020, under the call of the Ministry of Science and Technology, various sectors from industry, government, academia, and research were invited to participate in the "Science and Technology Epidemic Prevention Conference" to discuss potential ways of assisting epidemic prevention through innovative technology. Chen Chieh-Hsiao was one of the representatives attending at that time. Reflecting on the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, he believes that infectious diseases have long been overlooked by the medical community, as it is evident that the medical materials, protective tools, and testing technologies have not changed significantly compared to 17 years ago. Therefore, driven by a sense of responsibility for epidemic prevention and a mission to give back to society, Titanium Falcon rapidly developed and launched the first version of the "Automatic Nasopharyngeal Sampling Robot NSR" within two months, and completed development design and delivered the certification by June. In September, it became one of the first companies to receive the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) in Taiwan.
Subsequently, Titanium Falcon not only adopted rapid nucleic acid testing reagents from Swiss pharmaceutical company Roche but also developed and launched the world's first "Contactless Epidemic Prevention Sampling Station" in December 2020, integrating facial recognition, medical 3D positioning, navigation technology, robotic arms, positive and negative pressure isolation control, and a high-intensity ultraviolet sterilization lamp system, allowing specimen collection to be completed without face-to-face contact and significantly reducing testing manpower and infection risks. Currently, there are 18 contactless epidemic prevention sampling stations set up in hospitals across Taiwan, 14 of which were donated by the TSMC Charity Foundation.