Developing a globally competitive life sciences industry

IN the field of life sciences, Singapore has now gained an outsized standing in the global scientific community despite the country's relatively small size. However, this standing has yet to translate into expected downstream value-capture for the economy, especially in the startup/SME segment. This is in spite of the budding emergence of promising homegrown life science companies with a few success stories and a healthy number of out-licences of Singapore-owned IP.

With the rise of China, Singapore's role as an unrivalled Asian hub is changing rapidly. Many multinationals will choose to locate their Asian headquarters in one of the Chinese metropolises. While Singapore can continue to count on being the economic capital of South-east Asia, developing a homegrown ecosystem of life science SMEs/startups, some of which can eventually become competitive players on the global stage, should feature on the national agenda.

The life sciences industry is highly globalised, evergreen and knowledge-intensive and impacts humanity on a broad scale. Though consolidation is occurring within some segments of the industry, many opportunities for disruption still exist, allowing startups and SMEs to thrive, especially those that aim to address unmet needs.