While Singapore already has one of the most efficient healthcare systems globally (ranked second by Bloomberg Healthcare Efficiency Index 2016), its integrated approach towards the bio-pharma business environment continues to further strengthen its position in an otherwise difficult time for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. As organizations across the spectrum struggle on multiple fronts – declining R&D, pressures on costs and margins, heightened competition – they are increasingly getting interested in leveraging Singapore’s enabling and efficient ecosystem to further their productivity and profitability. This is quite evident from the fact that more than 30 leading companies (including the likes of GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, Amgen and Takeda) have chosen Singapore as their base for APAC operations and are using the city-state’s enabling facilities to drive innovation, efficiency and business growth.
According to a recent study by research and consulting firm GlobalData (published in June 2017), the pharmaceutical market in Singapore is set to rise from S$1.28 billion in 2017 to around S$1.6 billion in 2021, and will first exceed the S$1.35 billion mark in 2019.
Singapore’s approach to attracting sectoral investment sector is multi-pronged, with a (1) focus on government initiatives and friendly policies, (2) enabling public-private partnerships, (3) making it easy for Singapore to become a preferred manufacturing base, (4) creating dedicated infrastructure to provide synergies and economies of scale, and (5) providing necessary incentives and impetus on digital health and med-tech. According to EDB, this has in turn helped the sector catapult itself into a significant and growing contributor to Singapore’s economy – about 3.5 to 4.0 percentage of GDP is already attributable to it, amounting to roughly around S$ 27 billion (of which, approx. ~S$16 billion is from pharma and ~$S11 billion from med-tech). This is not a jobless growth either, as it has resulted in creating more than 18,000 jobs in recent years (with an approx. split of 2:1 between pharma and med-tech).
Public healthcare expenditure in Singapore is an equally important area that deserves a mention, as it provides unforeseen challenges and opportunities for the business. Though the city-state has maintained a modest overall spending in this area, a significant expense towards costly healthcare facilities is still privately spent.
Preferred Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Base
Process research and development capabilities in Singapore are helping companies innovate and improve biologics as well as small-molecule production. Further, with the objective of getting industry and research to collaborate, Biopharmaceutical Manufacturers’ Advisory Council (BMAC) – a think-tank comprising of members from local pharmaceutical plant site directors and government agencies, is committed to making Singapore become a highly-skilled manufacturing economy with a proven record of quality and process development capabilities. Other examples include Singapore’s Institute of Chemical and Engineering Services (ICES) opening a pilot-scale laboratory facility to aide pharma companies in process development and improvement.
All these efforts have yielded results, with all pharmaceutical commercial manufacturing facilities here receiving validation from international regulators such as the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMEA). A world-class physical and regulatory infrastructure, excellent global connectivity and a highly skilled human resource, therefore gives Singapore a competitive advantage.
This enabling ecosystem has helped Singapore become a leading choice of biopharmaceutical companies that are setting up their global manufacturing base here. Firms like Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Lonza, MSD, Novartis, Pfizer, Amgen and Sanofi-Aventis – just to name a few – have multi-purpose plants here that have the capability of manufacturing a range of active pharmaceutical ingredients...
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