Singapore still falling short for home-grown biotechs seeking IPO

Tough SGX mainboard listing rules, low liquidity, lack of deep institutional investor pool and sparse research ecosystem among reasons cited

Published Tue, Sep 15, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Biotech

Singapore

HOME-GROWN biotech companies would rather look for opportunities further ashore than list on the Singapore Exchange (SGX). Although the city-state has a growing biotech ecosystem, the local bourse has not been able to benefit much from it.

Industry players who spoke to The Business Times brought up issues of low liquidity, the lack of a deep institutional investor pool and a sparse research ecosystem as reasons why they would look elsewhere.

The biotech sector, which includes diagnostics, novel drug development and medical devices, is big business.

There have been 62 bio…