Featured Stories | Singapore Economic Development Board

Trusted Base for Industry Leaders

In June 2009, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) celebrated its 50th anniversary of doing business in Singapore, by opening its new S$700 million vaccine plant. This facility is GSK's first primary vaccine manufacturing plant and its largest investment in Asia. The plant will be one of only two global sites to produce bulk polysaccharides and conjugates.

The opening of GSK's vaccine plant also marks the beginning of GSK’s 10-year roadmap with the EDB. In line with this roadmap, GSK will set up an Academic Centre of Excellence for Discovery Research. GSK also jointly announced with the EDB a S$50 million endowment fund to support graduate studies and research in green manufacturing and public health policy.

"We are delighted to celebrate 50 years of pioneering work in Singapore," said Mr Andrew Witty, CEO, GSK. "We look forward to growing our strategic partnership for the next 10 years and beyond and establishing Singapore as GSK’s home for business, innovation, and talent in Asia, as encapsulated in our new vaccine plant."

Besides local pharmaceutical and consumer healthcare operations, Singapore serves as the headquarters for GSK's Asia-Pacific operations and houses the Singapore Research Centre at Biopolis. In addition, GSK has two global manufacturing and supply sites located in Singapore. With more than 1000 staff, GSK’s total investment in the city-state now exceeds S$1.5 billion.

World-Class Clinical Excellence

Abbott attested to the city-state's clinical excellence when it successfully completed its Phase 1 clinical trials in the National University Hospital (NUH). Abbott's small molecule drug, which treats advanced stages of lung cancer and other forms of cancer, showed promising anti-cancer activities. Building on this success, Abbott has chosen Singapore as one of the locations for Phase 2 clinical trials of the same drug candidate. NUH has established strong track records in clinical studies of novel anti-cancer compounds, and has conducted about 100 trials, several of which were international multi-centered trials.

Homegrown Innovation

Homegrown companies and research institute are garnering international recognition for their innovative research. They include MerLion Pharmaceuticals, S*Bio, Veredus Laboratories and the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology.

MerLion Pharmaceuticals made it to FierceBiotech’s 2007 industry listing of biotechnology companies to watch worldwide. It is the first Asian company on the annual roll of top emerging companies since the inaugural awards in 2003. In December 2007, the company received the “Best Company in an Emerging Market” award at the annual Scrip awards in London. MerLion Pharmaceuticals is a drug discovery and development company with one of the world's largest and most diverse natural product collections. The company has a novel antibiotic drug, Finafloxacin, a unique antibiotic that is activated under acidic conditions, for the eradication of Helicobacter pylori bacteria.

S*Bio is Singapore’s first fully integrated drug discovery company and was established in 2000 as a joint venture between the EDB and Chiron Corporation. In 2008, S*Bio received orphan drug approval from the US FDA to conduct clinical trials for a drug that is designed to treat myeloproliferative disorders (MPD), a disease which if untreated can lead to cardiovascular diseases and leukaemia. In 2009, S*Bio entered into licensing agreements Onyx and Tragara to develop and commercialise its novel compounds. Under these agreements, S*Bio is eligible to receive more than US$650 million in payment.

Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) has succeeded in developing an all-in-one rapid gene diagnosis device that enables polymerase chain reaction (PCR) gene detection within 17 minutes, which is radically faster than conventional laboratory methods. In Novemeber 2008, MP Biomedicals signed an agreement with A*Star to commercialise the device.

Veredus Laboratories collaborated with STMicroelectronics to commercialize a breakthrough molecular diagnostics lab-on-chip test kit - VereFluTM. This portable device, the size of a fingernail, allows for rapid detection of major influenza types within two hours instead of the weeks required using more traditional methods.

Regional Centre to Promote Best Practices

The National University of Singapore Academy of GxP Excellence (NUSAGE) was set up in 2008 to promote Good Practices in manufacturing (GMP), clinical research (GCP) and health product safety or vigilance (GVP). A collaboration between key industry leaders, leading government agencies and the National University of Singapore, NUSAGE is one of the first industry-wide training initiatives in the region and complements company specific training centres in Singapore. NUSAGE also provides basic training for people who are interested to join the industry.