The pharmaceutical giant will collaborate with EDB to identify new growth areas, boosting Singapore's efforts to be a global biomedical hub.

 

One of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), has announced its collaboration with Singapore through a 10-year strategic roadmap. Working with the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB), the UK-based company is identifying new growth opportunities in healthcare in Asia, to jointly develop innovative solutions to meet the needs of patients and the marketplace.

According to Andrew Witty, CEO, GSK, the Republic is an important component in GSK's overall strategy on several counts. GSK's manufacturing facilities for its new pharmaceuticals and vaccines will be amongst the company's core global manufacturing centres for new medicines. In addition, GSK's Centre for Research in Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders at the Biopolis could serve as a prototype for the company's research units worldwide.

"In Singapore we pretty much do everything - we have commercial, we have clinical trials, we do research, we do manufacturing. There are probably only three countries in the world where we do a bit of everything - America, Britain and Singapore. So Singapore is really one of the key countries," says Andrew Witty, CEO, GSK.

Beyond these activities, GSK is keen to explore how it can work together with Singapore to identify new areas for real collaboration, which will add value for both parties. One possible area centres on the environment. With a high level of manufacturing activities in the country, Witty believes that there could be opportunity for both GSK and Singapore to develop new technologies that could improve the environmental footprints of manufacturing plants.

"In Singapore, we pretty much do everything - we have commercial, we have clinical trials, we do research, we do manufacturing. There are probably only three countries in the world where we do a bit of everything...So Singapore is
really one of the key countries." - Andrew Witty, CEO, GlaxoSmithKline

Partners in Success

"EDB is privileged to be GlaxoSmithKline's strategic partner. Ours is a deep friendship that goes back almost 40 years. We look forward to working closely with Mr Witty and his team to map out the tremendous growth opportunities in healthcare and Asia, and to explore how Singapore and GlaxoSmithKline can jointly develop innovative solutions to meet the needs of patients and the marketplace," says Dr Beh Swan Gin, Managing Director, EDB.

GSK's relationship with Singapore dates back to 1972 when it opened the first pharmaceutical manufacturing plant. Since then, GSK's operations in the city-state have grown from strength to strength, and now span the entire value chain of activities, including drug discovery, clinical research, manufacturing and regional headquarters.

In March 2008, this relationship was further enhanced when GSK invested S$115 million (US$81.4 million) to establish the company's first and only Asian R&D pilot plant. The state-of-the-art plant in Pioneer Road will facilitate the design and manufacturing processes, to bring the latest drugs discovered at GSK into commercial production for the very first time. Moving from traditional manufacturing to innovation, it will involve new process development, process scale-up and eventually, process optimisation to handle large-scale drug production.

The company also has two other plants here - the one at Quality Road manufactures antibiotics, while the upcoming Tuas facility is for vaccines. Both the Tuas and Pioneer Road plants will be two of the company's core global manufacturing centres for new medicines. Witty pointed out that with a near 20 per cent approval rate for all new drugs in America, Singapore stands to benefit too, as many of them will be manufactured in its three factories here.

Singapore's Value Proposition

Indeed, Singapore has firmly established itself as a key global manufacturing site for pharmaceutical leaders. Today, the city-state is host to 11 global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies that have set up more than 25 commercial manufacturing facilities here. These facilities are validated by American and European regulatory authorities, and produce innovative medicines for the global market.

In R&D, Singapore is quickly emerging as one of Asia's fastest growing bio-clusters. The city-state is one of the world's most prolific research locations with 1.41 papers per 1,000 people (Wiley-Blackwell, 2007). Alongside the seven public-sector biomedical sciences research institutes and world-class hospitals, 50 companies from the US, Europe, Japan, Korea and other parts of Asia are carrying out R&D that straddles drug discovery, translational research and medical technology innovation. Today, there are more than 2,000 international researchers in Singapore.

With all the right ingredients, Witty believes that Singapore has potential to be a key location for drug discovery. Urging the nation to forge ahead in the face of competition from regional giants like China, he remarks, "It's not about being the biggest. It's about being the best." And it looks like Singapore is already making strides in that direction.