The incident of the botulinum toxin poisoning of black-faced spoonbills, which occurred in the west-coast marshlands of Taiwan in 2010, triggered Dr. Michael Chang, chairman of OBI Pharma, to take interests in developing Taiwan's native botulinum toxin that gave birth to OBI-858.

Dr. Michael Chang, the founder of OBI Pharma (4174.TWO) Inc, has dedicated his efforts to create an R&D pipeline in oncology of new drugs targeting Globo Series. In addition, OBI-858 is the second patented (in Taiwan and PCT worldwide patent pending) botulinum toxin product in the world.

Since the progress of OBI-858's development had reached a stage that it will require more resources for clinical trials, product production and commercialization, OBI pharma decided to spin off OBIGEN as a subsidiary in December 2020, and licensed OBIGEN to proceed with fund raising and operation independently.