Industry players in the field of biotechnology have much to rejoice as venture capital and private equity manager, Commerce-Ventures teamed up with Bank Negara Malaysia to launch their new 15 year, RM350 million agri-business funding initiatives called Commerce Agro Ventures Fund and Commerce Khazanah-Ventures. Launched by Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin, the fund would be invested in agriculture-based activities targeting investee companies in four key industries, namely fisheries, livestock farming, industrial and horticulture crop farming, and agro-biotechnology and food technology. The RM150 million fund would be focused on upstream and downstream industries, as well as early stage companies, while the RM200 million fund is for technology-based capital requiring intensive capital.

Similarly, there has been an influx of foreign investments with the recent push by the government for the biotech industry as various countries vie for a slice of the local biotechnology pie. Among them, Taiwanese bioindustries look set to pick Malaysia as its springboard into other Asian countries citing the advantages of political and economical stability. On the other hand, other foreign endeavors that seems to be falling into place are commitments from British investments and Dutch-based agrobusiness bank , Rabobank’s anticipated plunge into the Malaysian Agriculture sector.

Frustrated by the death of patients due to prolonged diagnosis from meliodosis, a bacterial infection, microbiologist Alex Francis decided to take things into his own hands, through research. After dedicating work on the disease, the nightmare of long waiting periods for diagnostic tests seem to be ending with the discovery of a media which allows for faster diagnostic time for the infection. The media, which takes only 18 hours to diagnose the disease compared to the 72 hours using conventional MacConkey, Ashdown and Blood Agar, is to be known after its inventor as Francis Media.