Strategy to Attract International Pharmaceutical Companies to Locate Vaccine Manufacturing Plants in Singapore
Ministry of Trade and IndustrySpeakers
Summary
This question concerns Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye's inquiry into the strategy for attracting international vaccine manufacturing plants to Singapore and the role of local small and medium enterprises in this production. Minister for Trade and Industry Chan Chun Sing responded that Singapore leverages its skilled talent and research and development commitment to attract global firms while pursuing discussions to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines locally. He emphasized that the Government supports local companies like Tychan and Mirxes through global partnerships and technology leveraging to contribute to diagnostics and vaccine development. To ensure early vaccine access, Singapore is participating in the COVAX Facility while fostering an ecosystem where local firms share insights on immune responses with global developers. The policy focuses on maintaining a competitive innovation environment that attracts global manufacturing capabilities and helps local enterprises capture emerging opportunities in the biomedical sciences industry.
Transcript
20 Mr Melvin Yong Yik Chye asked the Minister for Trade and Industry (a) what is the Government's strategy to attract international pharmaceutical companies to locate their vaccine manufacturing plants in Singapore; and (b) whether the Government has plans to carve out a role for our small and medium enterprises to play a role in the local production of these vaccines.
Mr Chan Chun Sing: Singapore has a globally competitive pharmaceutical manufacturing sector. Many pharmaceutical companies, such as Pfizer, Sanofi and Amgen, invest here to leverage on our skilled talent, commitment to research and development, and excellent global connectivity.
Our ongoing efforts to focus on innovation has helped us to build up a base of local companies in the biomedical sciences industry. We have supported our local companies such as Tessa Therapeutics that specialises in cell therapy for cancer treatment and Advanced MedTech that is a pioneer in urology treatments, by partnering them with global companies, marketing their products and services to overseas customers in global markets, and facilitating efforts to conduct R&D, leverage technology and prototype new products.
This strategy of attracting global pharmaceutical companies to Singapore, and building up our local SMEs, is serving us well in our fight against COVID-19. To help vaccine developers ramp up production, we are in discussions with global pharmaceutical companies to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines out of Singapore. To ensure that Singapore has early and equitable access to vaccines, we are also participating in the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility with other like-minded countries. Locally, companies specialising in diagnostics such as Mirxes and Acumen Diagnostics are manufacturing diagnostic kits. Other local companies such as Proteona and Immunoscape are leveraging on their innovative R&D capabilities and sharing their insights on human immune response against the virus, with pharmaceutical companies and vaccine developers. Tychan, a local biotechnology startup is also developing a monoclonal antibody for the treatment of COVID-19.
We will continue to do what we must to maintain our innovation eco-system including attracting global companies to establish their manufacturing capabilities in Singapore, and supporting our local companies to pivot into new areas to capture emerging opportunities.