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SPEECH BY MS AW KAH PENG, ASSISTANT MANAGING DIRECTOR, SINGAPORE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT BOARD, AT THE OPENING CEREMONY FOR PERKINELMER’S R&D CENTER OF EXCELLENCE, ON 26 MARCH 2008 AT 11.00 AM
Dr Daniel Marshak, Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer,
Dr Richard Begley, President of Analytical Sciences
Distinguished guests,
Good morning,
1. It gives me great pleasure to join you this morning for the opening of PerkinElmer’s R&D Center of Excellence and its Asian Technical Training Center.
2. PerkinElmer is a global leader in the Health and Analytical Sciences, with a worldwide presence in over 125 locations. For anyone who has ever worked in a laboratory dealing with life science research and clinical analysis, the name PerkinElmer is synonymous with good science.
3. PerkinElmer first established its presence in Singapore in the 1980s. Singapore’s pro-business environment and competitive workforce have encouraged PerkinElmer to grow and expand significantly over the last two decades. PerkinElmer Singapore Life and Analytical Sciences (LAS) Unit has also progressed from the manufacturing of a single product to a range of product lines and has chosen Singapore to manage its regional activities. We are delighted that today, PerkinElmer takes another step forward in Singapore by expanding its R&D base. We are proud of PerkinElmer’s success here. It is a success story of how companies and Singapore can work hand-in-hand, to co-create value and bring about mutual benefits for growth.
4. PerkinElmer Singapore’s new R&D Center of Excellence will play a lead role in developing next generation research tools for clinical analysis and biopharmaceutical research. The Singapore R&D team will acquire the essential know-how and experience to undertake more complex R&D such as development of novel research tools and applications to improve drug discovery processes. These capabilities fit into our overall strategy of making Singapore an advanced, highly productive and cost-effective biomedical sciences research and healthcare hub in both developed and emerging markets such as Asia.
5. According to a United Nation’s report, Asia’s population is expected to increase from 3.7 to 5.3 billion by 2050. Moreover, as the population becomes more affluent, we would also expect them to pay more attention to their personal health and well-being and correspondingly generate a greater demand for better quality healthcare. This presents tremendous opportunities as well as challenges for the global Biomedical Sciences industry. While Biomedical Sciences companies in all sectors including biopharmaceuticals, medical technology and healthcare delivery are racing to develop new solutions for unmet clinical and market needs, there is severe pressure for them to keep the developmental costs competitive. Raising the productivity and cost effectiveness of R&D has become a top priority for companies.
6. As such, we think Translational Clinical Research (TCR) will be one of the key enablers in providing more accessible and affordable healthcare. We have identified TCR as the next area of focus for Biomedical Sciences R&D. In simple terms, Translational Clinical Research is about bringing discoveries in the laboratory to the patient, or from bench to bedside, ultimately leading to improved human healthcare. To date, the Government has made significant investments to strengthen our capabilities in this area. These investments include the recently announced A*STAR-NUS Clinical Imaging Research Centre (CIRC) which focuses on bioimaging capabilities to support clinical trials of novel medicines and devices and the Investigational Medicine Units (IMU) at two of our public hospitals to support scientifically demanding clinical trials such as proof-of-concept or first-in-man trials. To drive the success of Singapore’s TCR initiative, we will continue to facilitate greater research collaborations between biopharmaceutical companies, medical technology companies, hospitals, and the public research institutes in Singapore.
7. Besides physical infrastructure, the key to success will be talent. Asia, with all its promise as an extremely exciting market of the future, is also the source of a global talent pool. Singapore remains committed to growing the biomedical sciences industry by leveraging and developing this talent pool. For example, yesterday saw the launch of the Singapore Academy for GxP Excellence, an initiative for training and development in the Biomedical Sciences sector that was made possible by a close collaboration between the industry, academia and government. We will continue to look for ways to work with the industry to advance human healthcare and take advantage of the exciting possibilities ahead.
8. In closing, I would like to extend my heartiest congratulations to the management and staff of PerkinElmer on the official opening of your R&D Center of Excellence and Technical Training Center. I wish you every success. Thank you. |
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