Editor’s Note
In November, we celebrated two key industry announcements with the opening of Roche’s first biologics manufacturing site in Asia Pacific and Quintiles’ expanded Asia-Pacific headquarters. These announcements further endorsed Singapore’s position as a home-base for companies’ expansion in Asia. In public sector R&D, A*STAR announced S$36million initiatives to drive medtech innovation, and published two genomic research projects in leading scientific journals. A*STAR also collaborated with Liggins Institute and Abbott to hold two scientific conferences in the Biopolis.

• Roche Opens First Biologics Manufacturing Site in Asia-Pacifc
• Quintiles Opens Expanded Asia-Pacific Headquarters in Singapore
• Singapore Announces S$36million Initiatives for Medtech Innovation
• New Ocular Lab and Clinical Research Facility Opened at Biopolis
• GIS Scientists Pioneer Breakthrough Method to Study 3D Whole Genome Mapping
• Scientists Successfully Created Genetic Map of Han Chinese
• UIUC Professor Appointed Director of Advanced Digital Sciences Center
• Three Scientists Receive STaR Awards to do Translational and Clinical Research in Singapore
• Liggins Partners A*STAR in New Zealand-Singapore Cancer Symposium
• Abbott Partners Singapore Institute for Clinical Studies in Conference on Neurocognition

Roche Opens First Biologics Manufacturing Site in Asia-Pacifc
Roche officially opened its first Asia-Pacific biologics manufacturing site in Tuas Biomedical Park, Singapore. With a combined investment of about US$500 million, the 12.6-hectare manufacturing site comprises two state-of-the-art facilities. The first microbial-cell facility will manufacture Lucentis, which is used to treat patients with wet age-related macular degeneration, a leading cause of blindness in people over 55, while the second mammalian-cell facility, which was purchased from Lonza by Genentech in August 2009, will manufacture Avastin, a targeted cancer therapy, which has proven survival benefits against multiple tumour types such as colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, brain cancer and renal cell carcinoma.

Speaking at the dedication ceremony, Dr Franz B. Humer, Chairman of Roche, said: “This world-class operation in Singapore will – as a cornerstone of our global manufacturing network – support us in accomplishing our mission of helping people live better lives through our novel medicines. It will play an important role in building Roche’s presence in Asia-Pacific and will join a strong network of manufacturing excellence and expertise with more biotech production capacity of any company worldwide.”

Quintiles Opens Expanded Asia-Pacific Headquarters in Singapore
To meet the growing demand for its services throughout the Asia-Pacific region, Quintiles held the official grand opening of its expanded regional headquarters facility in Singapore’s Science Park I. The new 79,000 square-feet facility doubles the size of its previous space in Singapore and provides additional room for expansion as future demand grows. In addition, the expanded lab facility provides a variety of globally harmonized lab services and plans are already underway to expand these capabilities in the coming months with the addition of an assay development lab (ADL) and an anatomic pathology lab.

“Our new facility provides us with the technology, resources and scalability necessary to meet the needs of our customers in today’s new healthcare landscape as well as scale our operations to meet their needs in the future,” said Anand Tharmaratnam, M.D., Senior Vice President and Head of Clinical Development for Quintiles Asia-Pacific.

Singapore Announces S$36million Initiatives for Medtech Innovation
The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) announced at the 14th Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council (BMS IAC) meeting that S$36 million would be pumped into new programmes to give Singapore’s growing medical technology industry a greater push. The new programmes include the collaboration between A*STAR and CIMIT (Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology) in Boston, USA. Under this collaboration, engineers, clinicians and scientists in Singapore can work with clinicians in Boston to develop engineering solutions that have clinical and market relevance. A*STAR’s Biomedical Engineering Programme was the other initiative and it oversees eight research projects which involve collaborations between A*STAR’s research engineers and clinicians/researchers at local hospitals and universities. These projects seek to develop and provide cost-effective, innovative and clinically impactful solutions for healthcare systems. The programmes were endorsed by the BMS IAC, which was chaired by Sir Richard Sykes, also the Chair of NHS London.

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New Ocular Lab and Clinical Research Facility Opened at Biopolis
Marking a significant bench to bedside research milestone in Singapore, the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) and the National University Hospital (NUH) have launched IBN iCare and the NUH Eye Centre @ Biopolis. IBN iCare will focus on developing cutting-edge nanomaterials for ocular therapy, while the NUH Eye Centre @ Biopolis will provide a clinical research environment that facilitates the development of new materials and techniques for ophthalmology practice. IBN’s nanostructured ocular materials will undergo clinical trials at the NUH Eye Centre prior to commercial applications.

For more info, please click here.

GIS Scientists Pioneer Breakthrough Method to Study 3D Whole Genome Mapping
A team of scientists at A*STAR’s Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) has made a major technological breakthrough in the study of gene expression and regulation in the genome’s three-dimensional folding and looping state through the development of a novel technology called the ChIA-PET. The discovery is crucial in unravelling the mechanisms of genome control during cell differentiation and will lead to a better understanding and control of diseases. Their results were published in the November 2009 issue of the prestigious journal, Nature.

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Scientists Successfully Created Genetic Map of Han Chinese
Scientists have, for the first time, successfully created a fine ‘genetic map’ of the Han Chinese, the largest ethnic population in the world, through a genome-wide DNA variation study. This ‘genetic map’ provides invaluable information on the population structure and evolutionary history of this group of people, and with that, helps to determine the design and interpretation of genetic studies of human diseases among them. The study, led by Dr Liu Jianjun, Human Genetics Group Leader at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS), was published online on 25 November 2009 in the American Journal of Human Genetics. The finding is part of a larger ongoing project on the genome-wide association study of diseases among the Chinese population. The project is a collaboration between GIS and several institutions and universities in China.

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UIUC Professor Appointed Director of Advanced Digital Sciences Center
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) have named Prof Marianne Winslett the new Director of the Advanced Digital Sciences Center (ADSC) – Illinois’ first research centre outside of the U.S. in Singapore. Prof Winslett, a professor of computer science and a member of the Coordinated Science Laboratory and Information Trust Institute at Illinois, assumed duties on 1 Nov 2009. Prof Winslett will lead ADSC’s signature programme, the Human Sixth Sense Programme (HSSP), funded by A*STAR. HSSP, which aims to seamlessly integrate human and machine interactions and develop breakthrough innovations, will have two initial thrusts: Health Monitoring and Intelligent Transportation. These will leverage on the synergy of Illinois and A*STAR’s strengths in real-time data mining, speech technology and cryptography.

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Three Scientists Receive STaR Awards to do Translational and Clinical Research in Singapore
Three renowned clinician scientists received the prestigious Singapore Translational Research (STaR) Investigator Awards to conduct research in Singapore. The award, jointly offered by the Ministry of Health (MOH) and The Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), provides research and salary funding to the researchers over a period of five years. The STaR award seeks to recruit top-notch clinician scientists to carry out medical research, henceforth bringing about better clinical applications and patient outcomes.

The three STaR awardees this year are Prof David Matchar, a health sciences research expert who is also the Director and Professor of the Health Sciences Research Programme in Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore, and two international cancer researchers – Prof Teh Bin Teah from the prestigious Van Andel Research Institute (VARI) and Prof Phillip Koeffler from the Cedars-Sinai Medical Centre, both from the United States of America.

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Liggins Partners A*STAR in New Zealand-Singapore Cancer Symposium
Twenty-two world-renowned scientists and clinicians from top universities and research institutes in New Zealand and Singapore joined about 200 researchers here to discuss their latest findings in cancer research. This meeting – the New Zealand-Singapore Cancer Symposium - is jointly organised by A*STAR’s Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB) and Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland in New Zealand, and is held at the Biopolis.  The symposium has a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from the genetic basis and cellular aspects of cancer spread, to novel approaches to treat cancer. 

For more info, please click here.

Abbott Partners Singapore Institute for Clinical Studies in Conference on Neurocognition
Abbott’s nutrition division has collaborated with the Singapore Institute for Clinical Studies to hold a Conference on Neurocognition: From Early Development to Aging, at the Biopolis. More than 200 researchers, scientists and medical professionals from around the world shared their latest scientific knowledge and insights, and engaged in discussions on the development of the human brain during the entire human life cycle, from early infancy and childhood through to the early and late phases of aging. The conference presents a meaningful platform to showcase current knowledge and emerging research in the scientific and medical fields to help provide better care for the young and elderly population.

For more info, please click here.

To find out more about Singapore’s Biomedical Sciences scene,
please visit www.biomed-singapore.com