A 100 million Swiss franc (S$134 million) medical research hub will be set up in Singapore soon as part of an alliance between Swiss healthcare firm Roche and several leading scientific and medical institutions.
The research centre, which is slated to be up and running towards the end of the first quarter, will draw on the expertise of the Agency for Science Technology and Research (A*Star), the National University of Singapore the National University Hospital, Nanyang Technological University, the National Healthcare Group and Singapore Health Services Pte Ltd.
A joint steering committee with members from Roche and the local institutes will set out the strategic direction of the alliance and oversee its research projects.
"Singapore's research institutions offer outstanding scientific excellence combined with state-of-the-art translational medicine facilities," said Jean Jacques Garaud, global head of Roche pharma research and early development.
"The powerful combination of intellectual and technological capabilities to gether with outstanding government commitment at the heart of this collaboration will provide a unique opportunity to drive personalised healthcare."
Called the Roche-Singapore Hub for Translational Medicine, the research hub will be staffed by 6-8 personnel from Roche and 25-30 scientists from Singapore. Roche declined to disclose the location of the centre.
"This collaboration will enable Roche to conduct multidisciplinary studies and generate important insights in disease biology to accelerate the drug discovery and development process," said Beh Swan Gin, managing director of the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB).
It will focus on virology and oncology research with an emphasis on the latter field.
The hub will deal specifically with translationalmedicine research which involves the understanding of how scientific advances from pre-clinical research can be transferred in practice to patients.
"The findings can be applied to patients and taken back to the labs with world class facilities and a proximity to researchers. This is what Singapore offers us," said Mike Burgess, Roche's head of the Alliance group in pharma research and early development.