UEM Land targets top foreign firms

23 August 2010 , By Business Times

UEM Land is targeting foreign biotech firms to anchor the Bio-Xcell biotech ecosystem in Nusajaya.

UEM Land Holdings Bhd (5148), the master developer for Nusajaya in Johor, is in negotiations with three top international biotechnology-based companies to anchor the Bio-Xcell biotech ecosystem in Nusajaya.

"We expect to sign with a US company by year-end. We are targeting foreign biotech firms," managing director and chief executive officer Datuk Wan Abdullah Wan Ibrahim said in an interview with Business Times recently in Kuala Lumpur.

"We are progressing well. There has been a lot of interest since the launch of Bio-XCell in Chicago and the CLSA Access Forum in Singapore three months ago," he said.

The 28ha Bio-XCell, which will cost RM700 million to set up, is the first biotech park in Malaysia focusing on biotechnology and healthcare.
It is a 40:60 joint venture with Malaysian Biotechnology Corp (BiotechCorp) Sdn Bhd, the country's biotech agency.

BiotechCorp chief executive officer Datuk Iskandar Mizal Mahmood had in May said Glycos Biotechnology Inc of the US, Switzerland's MGM Ingredients AG and an Indian-based pharmaceutical company are keen to set up shop at Bio-XCell, with combined investment of RM300 million.

Bio-XCell is located at the 520ha Southern Industrial and Logistics Cluster (SiLC), one of five signature developments at Nusajaya by UEM Land.

It will have central and shared facilities. UEM Land will build standard shell, each with built-up of 40,000 sq ft for companies to lease, and platinum buildings suited to their configurations.

Wan Abdullah said work on the facilities and building construction will start in October this year.

On SiLC, he said, UEM Land was talking to a strategic foreign partner to extract more value from the industrial park, instead of purely selling land.

He said the partner will help to build a hi-tech park, SME (small and medium enterprises) park or biotech facilities.

According to Wan Abdullah, the price for industrial land in SiLC has risen from its starting price of RM18 psf since the project launch in 2007 to RM28 psf this year.

"We are currently discussing offers at RM30 psf," he said.