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How MoleculeX’s Swallowable Mouth Patch Is Changing Cancer Care Worldwide
For most people, a mouth ulcer is just an occasional annoyance. But for cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiotherapy, oral mucositis (OM) can feel like a volcanic eruption inside the mouth. Even swallowing saliva can become incredibly painful. This intense, lingering pain not only destroys quality of life, it can also shake a patient’s determination to continue treatment.
This common but often overlooked problem led to the creation of MoleculeX, a startup focused on treating oral wounds. The company developed MuCover® Tissuetape and MuCoat™ Mucosal Coating Agent, products designed specifically to treat oral ulcers. MuCover® has received Class I medical device certification from Taiwan’s TFDA and is already available in pharmacies. It is also being introduced in major hospitals such as Taipei Veterans General Hospital, offering patients a new and practical approach to managing mucosal wounds.
These patches adhere directly to moist ulcerated areas in the mouth, creating a protective barrier that helps relieve the sharp pain triggered by contact with food, saliva, or speech. At the same time, they isolate the wound from irritation and support an ideal environment for healing.
With initial success in Taiwan, MoleculeX is now actively working toward international certification and expansion. The goal is to give more patients around the world the simple ability to enjoy a meal in peace.
The idea began with a personal struggle. "I often get mouth ulcers myself, and I always felt that most gels on the market didn’t really help," said Shaun Liao, founder and CEO of MoleculeX. As he looked deeper into the problem, he found that cancer patients often experience severe oral ulcers as a side effect of treatment. This is not a minor issue but a widespread and painful condition that remains largely unaddressed. "These aren’t just small sores. The entire lining of the mouth can break down, causing so much pain that patients can’t eat or speak. It seriously impacts their quality of life and their willingness to continue treatment."
Seeing the gap in care and the suffering it caused, Shaun Liao began to form a clear vision. He made the decision to stop letting this pain go unnoticed and committed to turning the challenge into action from the ground up.
How Bio-Adhesive Technology Unlocks New Opportunities in Wound Care
In clinical settings, doctors are often focused on helping cancer patients fight the disease itself. But when it comes to managing severe oral mucositis caused by chemotherapy, many feel helpless. The most they can usually offer is pain medication or mouth gels that provide limited relief.
"Patients need confidence to fight cancer, but the side effects can take them down before the disease does," said Shaun Liao, identifying a common dilemma in cancer care. Developing an effective dressing for the oral mucosa is a serious challenge. The tissue is constantly moist, it is subject to movement from chewing and speaking, and the wounds are extremely fragile.
Most products on the market are designed for dry skin and tend to lose effectiveness or fall off when exposed to saliva or other bodily fluids. MoleculeX eventually developed a core permeating adhesive technology that can be used not only for closing mucosal wounds but also for surgical bleeding control and targeted drug delivery.
"It works like countless microscopic molecular threads drilling down and wrapping tightly around the tissue surface," explained Shaun Liao. Using specially designed hydrophilic polymer materials with carefully engineered microstructures, the adhesive can penetrate the moisture layer on mucosal surfaces. This allows the dressing to stay in place for several hours, protecting the wound from saliva and other contaminants while creating the right environment for healing.
It's not enough for a patch to simply stick well. It also has to withstand the constantly changing, high-motion environment inside the mouth. "Japan does have small patches for mouth ulcers, but when it comes to larger wounds or post-dental surgery recovery, the patch needs to offer better flexibility and stretch to stay in place during chewing or talking," explained Shaun Liao.
To solve this, the team focused heavily on material selection and structural design. The goal was to ensure that the patch maintains strong adhesion while also being stretchable and resilient enough to handle movement without peeling off.
Just as important is how the dressing is removed. Shaun Liao pointed out that when applied to delicate oral tissue or inside the body, peeling off a patch can cause intense pain and further injury. To avoid this, MoleculeX chose plant-based materials like corn starch and sodium alginate, which are edible and naturally biodegradable. Once the patch has done its job, it gradually dissolves on its own without needing to be pulled off.
MoleculeX has already commercialized this technology. Its oral patch, MuCover® Tissuetape, functions like a soft synthetic skin for ulcers inside the mouth and has been approved as a Class I medical device by Taiwan’s TFDA. It is now available in pharmacies. The team has also created MuCoat™ Mucosal Coating Agent, a liquid dressing that forms a gel after application. It is particularly helpful for reaching deep areas of the throat where patches are difficult to apply. This product is currently under regulatory review in Taiwan.
MoleculeX’s Practical Market Strategy: Rapid Validation and Continuous Iteration
“Even though we’re using common ingredients, the real know-how lies in how we precisely control the ratios and manufacturing process,” said Shaun Liao with a smile. He often compares it to Coca-Cola’s secret recipe. While the patch is made from food-grade, familiar materials, the key is how it’s made. “It wasn’t just the process, it was also a bit of luck. We tried hundreds of formulas before finally finding a breakthrough.”
Every startup begins with a real, unresolved pain point. For Shaun Liao, it was a problem he knew all too well. A graduate of National Tsing Hua University’s biomedical engineering program, with a background in materials science, Shaun didn’t originally plan to become an entrepreneur. But during his graduate studies, he began to feel frustrated with how disconnected academic research could be from real clinical needs. That pushed him to start looking for solutions that could actually make a difference in patient care.
“No money, no resources, no network, and definitely no work experience. Back then, we were learning everything as we went,” Shaun said, laughing. It was a time defined by a gritty, garage-startup mentality. With extremely limited resources, he and his team spent nearly two years in relentless trial-and-error, formulating and testing countless variations before finally shaping the core of their breakthrough technology.
Once they had something promising, Shaun took the prototype to clinicians to gather feedback and validation. Fortunately, a few doctors immediately recognized its potential. They became MoleculeX’s first angel investors, offering not only early-stage funding but also clinical insight. Thanks to their support, the team was able to officially launch the company in 2021 and begin the journey toward full commercialization.
Unlike many medtech startups that start with high-risk implantable devices and spend years burning through capital while waiting for regulatory approval, MoleculeX took a more grounded approach. The team chose to focus first on oral mucositis, a lower-risk application, and successfully secured Class I approval from Taiwan’s TFDA in 2023.
“This was a lesson learned from watching friends in medical device and drug development,” said Shaun Liao, founder and CEO of MoleculeX. He had seen too many cases where a product took over a decade to pass regulatory hurdles, only to reach the market and discover it didn’t meet real-world needs. So the team decided to launch a lower-risk product first, quickly enter the market, and start gathering user feedback as early as possible.
After getting certified, the team spent nearly a year engaging with doctors, offering product trials, and seeking the right distribution partners. Harsh feedback and rejection became part of the daily routine.
“But that helped us learn early on what the market really wants—how to improve the product, how to educate users, and how to work with hospitals and distributors,” said Shaun Liao. This open, hands-on approach allowed them to refine their first product, the oral mucosal patch MuCover®, and successfully launch it in pharmacy channels. By late 2024, it had begun promotion at Taipei Veterans General Hospital.
Looking back, launching a company straight out of university and entering the highly regulated medtech sector felt like starting from the hardest level. The journey was packed with challenges and hundreds of failed trials. Often the youngest team in accelerators or startup programs, they lacked industry experience—but youth also offered flexibility.
“Compared to more established founders, we had more room to take risks,” said Shaun Liao. “If the product really didn’t work, we had time to pivot. And if that didn’t work, we could still walk away and get jobs. That’s a kind of freedom.”
That same flexible mindset shaped how MoleculeX worked with its distribution partners. “When we discuss pricing or market strategy with our distributors, we try not to insist on our own ideas. We respect their expertise. We often say, ‘You’re the experts. You decide,’” said Shaun Liao. For him, running a company means staying adaptable and being willing to face rejection or failure without losing momentum.
Looking Ahead: Targeting FDA Approval and Tapping into Global Resources
While MoleculeX has made promising progress in the Taiwanese market, its sights have always been set on the global stage. To move toward that goal, the team has actively participated in major trade shows and accelerator programs both in Taiwan and abroad. These platforms are viewed as essential gateways to international markets and key opportunities to connect with global partners. MoleculeX has taken part in programs such as the SPH Accelerator co-hosted by Taiwan’s National Development Council and UC Berkeley, as well as Japan’s renowned Plug and Play accelerator.
These international experiences brought more than just opportunity. They offered cultural insights and valuable learning. Founder and CEO Shaun Liao shared that being "thrown into foreign environments" forced him out of his comfort zone and gave him a new perspective. For example, pitching to investors in the United States required a stronger narrative approach rather than the structured, bullet-point style more common in Asia. It also pushed the team to engage directly with local startups, hospitals, and potential partners. “Meeting more people and seeing different ways of working was a valuable form of growth for us,” said Shaun Liao.
These efforts also led to tangible results. One major outcome was the formation of a key partnership in Japan. MoleculeX has since established early-stage research collaborations or communications with institutions like the University of British Columbia in Canada and the National Cancer Center in Japan. Through Plug and Play, the company also connected with a market advisor for Japan.
After navigating the U.S. and Japanese markets, the team has gained a clearer understanding of one critical hurdle: without local regulatory approval, meaningful commercial partnerships are difficult to pursue.
“Often, a conversation reaches a promising point, but it ends with a single sentence—‘You haven’t obtained certification yet.’ And there’s nowhere to go from there,” said Shaun Liao. That’s why the company’s top priority this year is to obtain FDA medical device approval in the United States. For MoleculeX, this is more than just a technical milestone. It’s the key to unlocking global markets and forming deep partnerships with international companies and distributors.
To support this goal, the company is now raising its first round of external funding. The capital will be used to advance FDA certification, launch the MuCoat™ liquid dressing, and scale up early-stage production capacity.
From addressing a personal pain point to gradually gaining traction in clinical settings and building international ties, MoleculeX has shown the resilience of Taiwan’s new generation of biotech entrepreneurs. With its unique bio-adhesive technology for wet tissue, the company is also poised to expand into other areas such as internal wound care and drug delivery, opening up new possibilities in the global biomedical field.
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