International Careers Report: Singapore

摘要

Singapore has successfully set up the infrastructure for a thriving life science industry. Now, its government is taking the next step: encouraging overseas pharmas and biotechnology firms to set up research centers and other institutions in the city state. About 20 years ago, the government of Singapore decided to create the foundations of a life science enterprise. Advised by such luminaries as Nobel laureates Sydney Brenner and David Baltimore, the city state began to set up research institutions devoted to individual facets of life science and to boost existing biology departments in local universities. In June 2000, the next stage began. "Philip Yeo [chairman of the government's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A~*STAR)] and some cabinet ministers decided that we ought to build life sciences as a pillar of the economy," recalls Kong Hwai Loong, executive director of A*STAR's Biomedical Research Council. Since then, the research institutions have matured, global pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have set up regional research centers in the country, and Singaporean startups have become more prominent. During the last year, many of those organizations have moved into Biopolis, a complex close to the National University of Singapore and the National University Hospital that is intended to stimulate the advance of life science by offering shared facilities and services and encouraging life scientists to mingle across organizations and disciplines.