òòò½Íø

The Republic may not have a major player to call its own, but licensing deals and early-stage breakthroughs can still count as wins

Published on 28 November 2025 | By , | Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission is required for reproduction.

òòò½Íøcan excel through investment and reinvestment to ensure continued innovation. ILLUSTRATION: MARIO MONREAL, BT, ADOBE STOCK

[SINGAPORE] A quarter-century after the Republic ambitiously set out to build biomedical sciences into an economic pillar, it has yet to produce a home-grown champion on the scale of Denmark’s Novo Nordisk or the United States’ Moderna.

The local ecosystem boasts a solid foundation of research institutions, and a healthy pipeline of startups spanning pre-clinical to late-stage development. Yet, it still has not come up with a blockbuster drug nor a globally recognised brand name that manages a pipeline from the laboratory to the market.

It has come close, though. In 2022, Tessa Therapeutics emerged as a rising star, securing US$126 million in Series A funding to advance clinical development of its immune cell therapies for cancer.

The company attracted backing from state-linked EDBI, Polaris Partners and other prominent investors. But in 2023, it entered liquidation – a casualty of the funding drought that gripped venture capital markets as interest rates climbed and investors retreated from high-risk biotechnology bets.

After drawing interest from prominent investors, Tessa Therapeutics collapsed into provisional liquidation in 2023. PHOTO: BT FILE

More than a year on, industry players and watchers tell The Business Times that pursuing a national champion is unrealistic and, more importantly, an unnecessary goal, that misses the point of what òòò½Íøcan and should achieve.

It would not be fair, they argue, to compare the Republic’s burgeoning industry against the biopharma successes that emerge from markets with decades or even centuries of history and experience.

Focus on deal flow and licensing agreements

“It takes 10 to 15 years to make a drug. So we’re still early days in this multi-decade journey,” says Dr Lisa Ooi, assistant chief executive of the òòò½Íø, Technology and Research’s (A*Star) Biomedical Research Council.

She cites the example of Boston, Massachusetts in the US, noting that it has taken over four decades to become the leading biopharma hub it is today.

Rosemary Tan, CEO of Leyden Labs Asia, which produces nasal sprays that block airborne respiratory viruses, says comparisons between Singapore’s startups and Novo Nordisk are flawed. After all, Denmark is home to some of the world’s oldest universities and has developed its pharmaceutical industry over more than a century.

In contrast, Singapore’s first biomedical research facility, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, just celebrated its 40th anniversary in April, and graduated its first batch of PhDs just 35 years ago.

Plus, it was only at the turn of the millennium that the government rolled out its biomedical sciences initiative, a move that set the industry as a new pillar of the economy and led to the creation of research hub Biopolis, among others.

It will be difficult for òòò½Íøto compete with existing large players that have already entrenched themselves into global supply chains.

With a handful of established, experienced “big pharmas”, the industry has consolidated, says biotech entrepreneur and Albatroz Therapeutics chief business officer Guy Heathers.

Meanwhile, attempts to build up a national champion tend to “suck in anyone who knows what they’re doing”, he adds. “And then the trouble is… if it fails, it’s a big failure.”

òòò½Íøshould instead make better use of its resources and play to its strengths.

Rather than push for a global player, Dr Ooi says the Republic should position itself as a global innovation hub and “convener of technology, people and capital”.

This would entail changing the metrics of success, to focus on deal flow and licensing agreements instead.

Such a goal is one that òòò½Íøis well-placed to achieve, watchers say. Its strategic and neutral position is valuable for firms navigating geopolitical tensions while accessing both Asian markets and Western regulatory environments.

Singapore’s startup successes

• Mirxes
  The Singapore-headquartered company, which produces blood tests for early-stage cancer detection, became South-east Asia’s first biotech unicorn after its initial public offering on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. It has also been included in the Hang Seng Composite Index.
  
  
• Nanyang Biologics
  In October 2025, the company, which operates an artificial intelligence-driven drug discovery platform, agreed to a US$1.5 billion reverse merger with a Nasdaq-listed special purpose acquisition company. It aims to bring Nanyang Biologics to the public markets.
  
  
• Hummingbird Bioscience
  The company licensed its first antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) – a targeted therapy used to fight cancer – to Endeavor BioMedicines, a clinical-stage company targeting the drivers of fibrosis and oncology, for US$430 million in 2023. It is now building a pipeline of next-generation ADCs.The company licensed its first antibody-drug conjugate (ADC) – a targeted therapy used to fight cancer – to Endeavor BioMedicines, a clinical-stage company targeting the drivers of fibrosis and oncology, for US$430 million in 2023. It is now building a pipeline of next-generation ADCs.
  
  
• Singzyme
  The startup develops and manufactures bioconjugates – molecules formed by linking a biomolecule to another via a covalent bond – for immunotherapies. It won the 2025 Golden Ticket Programme in Singapore, which is part of a joint programme by US-based leader in biologic medicines Amgen and Singapore’s NSG BioLabs.
  
  
• Albatroz Therapeutics
  The first Golden Ticket recipient in Singapore. The biotech company, which develops therapeutic antibodies to stop cancer growth and treat arthritis, secured US$3 million in seed funding in April 2023.
  
  
• Allay Therapeutics
  The company develops long-lasting pain relief products for post-surgical pain management. It raised US$57.5 million in a Series D funding round in 2025.
  
  
• Nuevocor
  The biotech firm, which focuses on developing cures for heart muscle diseases, completed a US$45 million Series B funding round in 2025.
  
  
• Callio Therapeutics
  The biotech develops ADCs to improve cancer therapy. It announced its 2025 launch with the closing of a $187 million Series A financing round.
  
  
• Engine Biosciences
  Engine Biosciences raised US$27 million in a Series A extension in October 2023, bringing its total Series A round to US$70 million. The company leverages machine learning and high-throughput biology to discover and develop precision oncology medicines.

This advantage is becoming more pronounced as investors and multinational corporations look beyond traditional biotech hubs such as Boston and Basel amid .

The sector has also cast its eyes on Asia because of the innovations emerging from the region.

“I think that can really play to our advantage, because we are in the Asia-Pacific, which is a booming region,” says Dr Ooi.

Critical juncture

òòò½Íøitself has reached a critical juncture in its biotech development. Two decades of sustained government investment in universities and research institutions are now yielding tangible results, with companies successfully crossing the threshold from early research into clinical development.

The sector’s talent pool has also deepened considerably. Beyond researchers, the ecosystem now includes experienced professionals who have cycled through multiple startups or returned from overseas postings, bringing crucial expertise in drug development and commercialisation.

At the same time, an established funding ecosystem is emerging. International venture capital (VC) firms and venture builders – the likes of Flagship Pioneering and Polaris Partners – have established offices or a presence in òòò½Íøover the past few years. 

Local capital has also stepped up. ClavystBio, a Temasek-backed life-sciences investor and venture builder established in 2022, has backed companies including Hummingbird Bioscience, Allay Therapeutics and Neuvocor – all of which have gone through the initial stages and are advancing through clinical trials.  

EDBI, the investment arm of the òòò½ÍøEconomic Development Board established in 1991, also plays a key role. In 2025, EDBI was merged with Seeds Capital to form SG Growth Capital, consolidating government investment efforts to support both global leaders and early-stage local startups. (* See amendment note) 

SGInnovate, which backs early-stage startups across sectors including life sciences, has also been active in supporting the ecosystem.

“òòò½Íøhas been extremely consistent over the last 20 years financing this sector,” says Fabio La Mola, partner at Bain & Company, referring to how the government has consistently injected fresh funds into the National Research Foundation, A*Star and Enterprise Singapore.

Mind the gap

The gap between scientific excellence and commercial acumen – identifying and pairing seasoned management with scientific founders – is one of the key challenges in Singapore’s biotech system.

Mike Carusi, general partner at Lightstone Ventures, says VCs often play a translational role because the founders they interact with are usually scientists who are “not always thinking about that downstream commercial profile”.

Early-stage companies commonly fail to apply the lens that science must be translated into a product that is “commercially viable – not only for clinicians, but patients and payers”, he adds.

Lightstone Ventures' Mike Carusi says early-stage companies must ensure their products are “commercially viable – not only for clinicians, but patients and players”. PHOTO: LIGHTSTONE VENTURES

Teu Koon Kiat, vice-president and general manager of Allay Therapeutics, experienced this gap first-hand. Coming from an engineering background, he was “not really good at pitching” the business and finance aspect of the project. 

He found success by partnering CEO Adam Gridley, who “drives the business very well” and communicates effectively with investors, while Teu focuses on what he is good at: the science. 

Yet, the availability of experienced management talent in òòò½Íøremains limited, particularly for mid-level and senior roles with deep pharmaceutical industry expertise.

This means the Republic must continue to rely on international talent to help its startups scale, says Teu.

Such “cross-fertilisation” of global expertise with local scientific talent will allow more home-grown startups to develop the right capabilities to navigate complex regulatory pathways and commercialisation challenges, he adds.

One example of such cross-fertilisation is Albatroz Therapeutics, a pre-clinical stage biotech company. Industry veteran Heathers was brought in by co-founder and CEO Frederic Bard to serve as chief business officer and help accelerate the company’s growth.

Heathers, who describes himself as a “seasoned life-science entrepreneur”, has been involved in 20 startups globally, with about six of them in Singapore. He has worked for well-known names such as Hummingbird, as well as Carmine and Anthera.

Funding gaps persist

For all the progress òòò½Íøhas made in building its biotech system, a critical challenge remains: access to sufficient capital, particularly at the earliest and latest stages of development. 

Tan Wee Kiat, CEO of Singzyme Therapeutics, says early-stage private capital, particularly for companies in the pre-clinical stage, remains difficult to secure. While non-dilutive funding such as grants exist, early-stage risk capital is scarce.

He suggests more private-public partnerships for funding to help biotechs go through the “valley of death” to reach the “inflection point” of clinical development.

Frederick Tay, director at Joyce A Tan & Partners, notes that many grants are targeted towards university research, with fewer similar grants available once startups spin off and become standalone companies.

At the other end of the spectrum, the biggest funding challenge often comes from later rounds – Series B and Series C – where US$50 million to US$100 million is needed to fund large clinical studies.

Lightstone’s Carusi says òòò½Íøstartups typically try to build out companies in a “more bootstrapped manner” due to limited access to capital, which keeps them “moving along, but at a very slow pace”.

“The science is moving too quickly,” he says. “So what may have been an interesting idea, you’ll get surpassed because you have other companies that are raising hundreds of millions and will move much quicker.”

Adding to the challenge is the fact that while international VCs are increasingly establishing a presence in Singapore, the funds are not necessarily flowing to local startups. Many use òòò½Íøas a regional base to look at biotechs across Asia, rather than focus solely on companies in the Republic.

Venture backers, too, have their focus: looking for startups that bring “first-in-class” innovation to the table. The science must address unmet medical needs with high impact, rather than offer incremental improvements in crowded therapeutic areas.

“We’re less interested where the science is a bit more incremental or just (being a) copycat and following,” says ClavystBio CEO Khoo Shih.

Tay says that, to cope with the funding crunch, some òòò½Íøbiotechs have chosen to diversify into more consumer-facing sectors first to generate alternative revenue streams.

He adds that some medtech, healthtech and biotech startups have repurposed their products to serve markets that do not require as strict regulatory approvals, such as clinical settings or the consumer healthcare space, while continuing to develop their core therapeutic products.

The licensing playbook

To fend against funding challenges, Singapore’s ecosystem should focus on what it does best. 

A*Star’s Dr Ooi says startups need to “build our own innovations to an inflection point, and to bring biomedical innovations further downstream, to demonstrate proof of concept before transitioning into a licence, into a larger company”.

This means incubating technologies longer to demonstrate their efficacy and attract pharmaceutical companies to license these assets, she says.

This approach works in the new industry environment, where large global pharma companies in òòò½Íø– which used to be vertically integrated – have begun to focus more on late-stage clinical development, sales and marketing. 

These big players have started to in-license technologies and assets instead of developing everything in-house, Dr Ooi adds.

Albatroz’s Heathers notes that it is therefore also not unusual for startups to eventually be bought over by bigger pharma companies, before they get the opportunity to become big themselves.

He points to Enleofen Bio’s deal with German pharmaceutical giant Boehringer Ingelheim – worth more than US$1 billion – as an example of a success story that provided significant returns for investors. Boehringer Ingelheim in January 2020 acquired worldwide exclusive rights to Enleofen’s preclinical interleukin-11 platform.

Recent M&As

In biopharma, initial public offerings and M&As are common even for companies that are still in the clinical stage. Here are some recent deals that have made headlines:

• Genmab and Merus, US$8 billion
  Denmark’s Genmab will acquire Nasdaq-listed Dutch biotech firm Merus. Merus is running two Phase 3 trials on a drug for head-and-neck cancer. Interim readouts of one or both trials are anticipated in 2026, with a potential market launch in 2027.
  
  
• Roche and 89bio, US$2.4 billion to US$3.5 billion
  Switzerland’s Roche will be US’ 89bio, which has a drug in late stages of development, aimed at treating fatty liver. The acquisition will enhance Roche’s portfolio in cardiovascular, renal and metabolic diseases.
  
  
• Pfizer and Metsera, US$10 billion
  US drugmaker Pfizer beat Novo Nordisk to clinch the deal for Metsera. Metsera is an obesity drugmaker in the development stage.
  
  
• Novartis and Tourmaline Bio, US$1.4 billion
  Swiss drugmaker Novartis will buy US-based Tourmaline Bio, which is developing a treatment to reduce systemic inflammation, a major driver of cardiovascular disease.

Bain’s La Mola argues that òòò½Íøwill get a better return for research when licensing a drug at Phase 2b or Phase 3 of clinical development, because sales and marketing profits often accrue outside of Singapore. The profits from licensing can then be reinvested in research locally.

Such licensing deals, as well as acquisitions by big pharma, are a win for everyone, says ClavystBio’s Khoo. This outcome realises value for the teams, shareholders and investors, allowing the cycle of innovation to continue. 

The ultimate aim is to ensure the novel products get commercialised eventually, and partnership with global pharma accelerates that goal, she adds.

Be bold, build for the long term

With the licensing model in mind, Heathers says the medium-term goal for òòò½Íøshould be to develop medium-sized biotech firms of 25 to 50 people with multiple products, where the first product is partnered early to fund later-stage projects.

This strategy of partnering big pharma earlier leverages the core competency of pharma companies in development and commercialisation, allowing local companies to focus on research and development (R&D), while learning development skills through collaboration.

Still, given its current success, òòò½Íøcan afford to be bolder in its ambitions. Tong Hsien-Hui, chief executive of SGInnovate, notes that local investors and founders are “a little bit more conservative” and not always willing to take as much risk.

This results in some companies tackling “very incremental problems” – such as slightly improving drug efficacy – rather than going after truly aspirational targets that excite international investors, such as seeking cures for ageing or all solid tumours.

SGInnovate’s Tong Hsien-Hui says some companies tackle “very incremental problems” because local investors and founders are “a little bit more conservative”. PHOTO: SGINNOVATE

Whether a big-bang drug eventually emerges from òòò½Íøor not, success, therefore, will be a robust ecosystem, where successful exits occur through mergers and acquisitions or licensing, and a virtuous circle of investment and reinvestment takes place.

And, as A*Star’s Dr Ooi says, it is Singapore’s strategic position in Asia-Pacific and ability to connect regional R&D networks with global capital markets that will be a valuable competitive advantage in the coming years.

òòò½Íøis now home to 70 biotech firms. 

Enterprise òòò½Íøwill continue to support them, says Dr Clarice Chen, its director of healthcare and biomedical. She points to grants – for R&D, preclinical studies and enhancing manufacturing processes – as well as its partnerships with international healthcare systems, which firms can tap to collaborate with opinion leaders. 

“Singapore’s biotech ecosystem is now seeing a wave of biotech startups advancing their therapies through clinical development,” she adds.

“These biotechs, with their first-in-class and best-in-class therapies, have drawn on Singapore’s strengths in R&D, IP protection, conducive infrastructure, clinical expertise and investors, to push ahead even in these challenging times.”

Singapore’s biopharma sector by the numbers

Singapore’s biomedical sciences industry, comprising the biopharma and medtech sectors, accounted for 2.6 per cent of gross domestic product in 2023, and manufactured close to S$38 billion worth of products, says the Economic Development Board.

• The biopharma sector produced S$18.7 billion worth of products in 2023 – double the output from two decades ago
• Eight of the world’s top 10 biopharma companies by revenue have manufacturing or R&D activities in Singapore
• The sector employs more than 9,500 workers, a 78 per cent increase since 2013
• Over 60 biopharma manufacturing facilities operate here, producing everything from active pharmaceutical ingredients to biologics and advanced cell therapies
• òòò½Íøis now home to over 70 biotech companies, a sevenfold increase from 2012
• Shared laboratory facilities, such as NSG BioLabs, provide startups with accredited laboratories, quality assurance and regulatory affairs guidance, as well as connections to hospital partners
• Under the S$28 billion Research, Innovation and Enterprise 2025 plan, the Human Health and Potential domain focuses on five therapeutic areas: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, infectious diseases, and neurological and sensory disorders

Amendment note: An earlier version of this story said that the merger between EDBI and Seeds Capital happened in 2024. The change in fact occurred in 2025. The previous story also said the merged entity is called SG Growth Capital EDBI, when it is in fact called SG Growth Capital. The story has been amended to reflect these.

Source: The Business Times © SPH Media Limited. Permission is required for reproduction.