Singapore Moves Upstream In The Medtech Value Chain

Singapore set out to build a knowledge-based economy some 25 years ago and biomedical sciences have been a key focus of successive five-year R&D funding initiatives. In this article exploring Singapore’s R&D landscape – including insights from key decision-makers and innovators – Tina Tan talks to executives of Exploit Technologies Pte Ltd. (ETPL), the commercialization arm of the country’s science and technology agency, A*STAR, on their models for engaging the different players in the innovation ecosystem. She also delves into one of Singapore’s research institutes, the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, to find out what academia-industry collaborations are being forged there

The rapid growth of Singapore’s economy, like that of its fellow Asian Tigers, was largely powered by its manufacturing industry in the post-war decades. But following the recession in...