Industry development background & Achievement:- Singapore had no corresponding biomedicine science infrastructure and no industry foundation
- Aim to learn from and catch up with advanced development over sea.The intention of Singapore government was to creation this new biomedicine cluster was to shift and diversify the high dependence on IT and electronic manufacturing and make life science as a new pillar for the national economy and qualify Singapore to be the premier biomedical science hub with full scale research, manufacturing and healthcare delivery capacity. - Singapore benefited from the strategy of attracting development finance institution from multinational corporations and leveraging them to exploit technologies developed elsewhere. (Macmillan et al. 2009) Position Singapore as a global leading pharmaceutical knowledge, manufacturing and service hub. Thanks to the leveraging strategy, Singapore has witnessed rapid growth in pharmaceutical manufacturing: 18% p.a. since 1980 to S$20.9 billion in 2006. (Arnold 2003) |
Funding, Launching & Supporting agency & Technical advisory bodies:Public funding & Private funding:
New initiatives were launched to activate the development of the biomedicine science cluster: Public funding were allocated to jumpstart the Biomedicine science cluster. 1 billion USD fund were provided to a few life science research institutes to co fund new global pharmaceutical research and design projects and initiate the construction of Biopolis building. Continuous additional public funding was further allocated in order to sustain the growth of the cluster. Beside the significant expansion of the biomedical sector, medical technology manufacturing industry emerged. With the combination of the 2 sectors, the Biomedical science cluster achieved $23 billion output in 2006 with the average annual growth rate of 17.9%.(Macmillan et al. 2009) The rapid growth of the cluster created a great number of employment opportunities. The number of employment doubled from 2000 to 2006 to reach 10,571 with the steady productivity from $0.65 million/worker to $1.3 million/worker in 2006. (Macmillan et al. 2009) The success also generated positive impact on research and design with a rapid growth of 28.3% p.a. since 2000. (Macmillan et al. 2009) Which continue providing essential support to the further development of the cluster. Bio-Medical Science hub launch & supporting agencies : - Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Biomedical Research council within (A*STAR) is responsible for the making and implication of appropriate policies, arranging resources and organising education architecture. Build the competencies of biomedical science, fund and support public research initiatives. Economic Development Board (EBD) EBD is responsible for introduce investments into the biomedical science sector and generating economic value in the long term through Biomedical Science Group & Bio*One Group: - Biomedical Science Group is responsible for supporting biomedical science by developing human, intellectual and industrial capital in Singapore. - Bio*One Capital operates as an investment arm Biomedical Science Group & Bio*One Capital collaborate to attract Biomedical Science firms to establish Research and Design centres and develop local biomedical science in Singapore. (Finegold et al 2004). infographic to be added Essential Technical advisory bodies lead the biomedical research: - Biomedical Sciences Executive Committee Leads Biomedical Science initiative and made the strategy of attracting and extensively use global talent in the development of Biomedical Science in Singapore. It is advised by International Advisory Council. The International Advisory Council is formed by international eminent scientist of biomedical filed. - Bioethics Advisory Committee Responsible for advising on social, legal and ethical issues regarding human biology research. The recommendations that allows human stem cell research and cloning used as a therapeutic tool was accepted by the government at the time when the debate over stem cell happened in the US, which provided a regulatory environment for Biomedical Science research and development in Singapore. By having the legal support from national law and comply international guideline advanced Singapore in stem cell research. |
Essential Biomedical Science Cluster development
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