KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 5): The Ministry of Plantation Industries and Commodities (MPIC), through the Malaysian Rubber Council (MRC), is always drafting and implementing short-, medium- and long-term plans to maintain Malaysia's global leadership in the production of rubber gloves.
Minister Datuk Dr Mohd Khairuddin Aman Razali said that under the short- and medium-term plans, MRC will continue to carry out promotional activities overseas, such as participating in international trade expositions together with industry players, organise trade missions and educational seminars, business matching and advertising in international media.
"These promotional activities not only include leading rubber glove markets such as the United States and Europe but also cover most populous countries with high potential like China, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brazil and Russia,” he said during the question-and-answer session in the Dewan Rakyat today.
He was replying to a question from Wong Chen (PH-Subang) who wanted to know about the policies planned by the Ministry to strengthen Malaysia’s global leadership in rubber glove production.
Through the long-term plan, Mohd Khairuddin said the Ministry via MRC will focus on boosting investment activities by industry players and empower the downstream rubber industry to improve the competitiveness and value of rubber glove exports from Malaysia.
These include offering incentives for automation and green technology launched in 2019 totalling RM20 million.
To-date, about RM7 million has been approved for 14 projects including procurement of automatic rubber glove packaging, latex dipping and automatic glove stripping machines for automation incentives.
He also said that an industry relations fund was set up to promote cooperation between researchers and industry players to boost research and development and innovation in the rubber downstream sector.
To date, Mohd Kharuddin said nine companies including Mah Sing Group Bhd, AT Systematization Bhd and Hong Seng Bhd have announced plans to set up new rubber glove factories in Malaysia.
In addition, at least five existing glove companies will expand their respective capacities, such as Top Glove Corp Bhd, Hartalega Holdings Bhd and Supermax, he said.
The Ministry also encourages investment in new rubber glove factories in cooperation with the state government such as in Terengganu where a local rubber glove factory is having talks with a State government-linked company to set up a plant in Kerteh, Terengganu.
KUALA LUMPUR (Nov 5): The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said hard disk drive manufacturer Western Digital Sdn Bhd will invest RM2.3 billion to upgrade its facilities and increase its output capacity in Malaysia.
In a statement, the PMO said this was agreed upon during a meeting between Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin and Western Digital group chairman Datuk Dr Syed Hussian Aljunid today, which brings the total investment by the group in the country close to RM18 billion.
The new investment will go towards increasing its facility and factory capacity in Western Digital Media Penang and Western Digital Sarawak, it said, noting that the group had exported a total of RM18 billion worth of products in 2019.
“The additional investment will benefit the nation’s economy, besides creating new jobs for over 2,000 locals,” said the PMO.
The office said that the Prime Minister welcomes companies that are interested in investing in high-impact technology-based industries in Malaysia.
“The Government through the Ministry of International Trade and Industry, Malaysian Investment Development Authority (MIDA) and other related agencies are always committed to attracting and convincing investors to invest or make additional investments in Malaysia.
“The commitment of the Western Digital group reflects the high confidence of foreign investors in the Government to continue to expand their investments and operations in Malaysia,” it said.
Pfizer Inc on Monday said its experimental vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing Covid-19 based on initial data from a large study, a major victory in the fight against a pandemic that has killed over 1 million people, roiled the world's economy and upended daily life.
Pfizer and German partner BioNTech SE are the first drugmakers to show successful data from a large-scale clinical trial of a coronavirus vaccine. The companies said they have so far found no serious safety concerns and expect to seek US emergency use authorisation later this month.
If authorised, the number of vaccine doses will initially be limited. Many questions also remain including how long the vaccine will provide protection. However the news provides hope that other vaccines in development against the novel coronavirus may also prove effective.
"Today is a great day for science and humanity," Albert Bourla, Pfizer's chairman and chief executive, said in a statement. "We are reaching this critical milestone in our vaccine development program at a time when the world needs it most with infection rates setting new records, hospitals nearing over-capacity and economies struggling to reopen."
Pfizer expects to seek broad US emergency use authorisation of the vaccine for people aged 16 to 85. To do so, it will need to have collected two months of safety data on around half of the study's roughly 44,000 participants, expected in late November.
"I'm near ecstatic," Bill Gruber, one of Pfizer's top vaccine scientists, said in an interview. "This is a great day for public health and for the potential to get us all out of the circumstances we're now in."
Pfizer said the interim analysis was conducted after 94 participants in the trial developed COVID-19, examining how many of them received the vaccine versus a placebo.
The company did not break down exactly how many of those who fell ill received the vaccine. Still, over 90% effectiveness implies that no more than 8 of the 94 people who caught Covid-19 had been given the vaccine, which was administered in two shots about three weeks apart.
The efficacy rate is well above the 50% effectiveness required by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for a coronavirus vaccine.
To confirm its efficacy rate, Pfizer said it will continue the trial until there are 164 Covid-19 cases among participants. Given the recent spike in US infection rates, that number could be reached by early December, Gruber said.
The data have yet to be peer-reviewed or published in a medical journal. Pfizer said it would do so once it has results from the entire trial.
Pfizer and BioNTech have a $1.95 billion contract with the U.S. government to deliver 100 million vaccine doses beginning this year. They have also reached supply agreements with the European Union, the UK, Canada and Japan.
To save time, the companies began manufacturing the vaccine before they knew whether it would be effective. They now expect to produce up to 50 million doses or enough vaccine to protect 25 million people this year.
Pfizer said it expects to produce up to 1.3 billion doses of the vaccine in 2021.
Fosun Pharma has stopped development of BioNTech’s first COVID-19 vaccine, following the lead of its German partner by picking BNT162b2 as the candidate to take to market.
BioNTech signed up to work with Fosun to bring a COVID-19 vaccine to China in March. The deal, which is worth up to $135 million, led to Fosun registering a phase 1 trial of mRNA vaccine BNT162b1 with the Chinese authorities in July. Less than one week later, BioNTech and its global partner Pfizer selected BNT162b2 as the candidate to take forward into phase 2/3.
Now, Fosun Chief Medical Officer Aimin Hui has told Reuters that BNT162b2 is also the preferred shot for the Chinese market. Fosun has opted against further development of BNT162b1, choosing instead to run a bridging study that may enable it to use global BNT162b2 data to support approval in China.
Chinese authorities have become more accepting of data generated overseas in recent years. If all goes to plan, the bridging study will enable Fosun to show the safety and efficacy seen in the global program is applicable to the Chinese population and win approval “around the same time” as the vaccine is authorized in other countries.
The switch to BNT162b2 could provide benefits. BioNTech and Pfizer selected the vaccine as their phase 2/3 candidate, despite it entering the clinic second, after linking it to a lower rate of adverse events than BNT162b1.
In a phase 1/2 trial, 17% of 18- to 55-year-olds who received 30 μg of BNT162b2 reported related adverse events. The comparable adverse event rate for BNT162b1 was 50%. BioNTech and Pfizer also linked BNT162b1 to a higher rate of adverse events in 65- to 85-year-olds. Fewer people who received BNT162b2 suffered systemic events, and those that did reported milder events.
The immune responses linked to the two vaccines were similar, leading BioNTech and Pfizer to pick the more tolerable candidate for late-phase development. Given the potential for the vaccine to be given to hundreds of millions of people as well as face intense scrutiny and, in some quarters, skepticism, tolerability could be an important enabler of successful mass immunization programs.
It remains unclear when those immunization programs will start. Last week, Pfizer said its trial was yet to see the 32 COVID-19 cases that will trigger the first look at the late-phase data.
Mqtech is related to Kibaru Penang which has the right to distribute Fosun (BionTech) vaccine once it is available.... let's see how they want to play this up!
with the new development on vaccine, it is possible Semperit will expedite the disposal of Latexx to Mqtech. if that is the case, then, Mqtech will have both gloves and vaccine as well as hard disk business..
...............zhm540 with the new development on vaccine, it is possible Semperit will expedite the disposal of Latexx to Mqtech. if that is the case, then, Mqtech will have both gloves and vaccine as well as hard disk business.. 10/11/2020 10:50 AM
This book is the result of the author's many years of experience and observation throughout his 26 years in the stockbroking industry. It was written for general public to learn to invest based on facts and not on fantasies or hearsay....
Sy2020
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Posted by Sy2020 > 2020-11-05 09:06 | Report Abuse
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