Singapore Gets Busy With BioMedical Asia 2008
Sheila Wan EditorAsia is a worthy partner in business for greater expansion.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
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Come April 14-17, Suntec Singapore International Convention & Exhibition Centre will hold the largest and most comprehensive biomedical event in Asia Pacific. Top minds from every continent will convene in the six conferences, two summits and five workshops.
The exhibition is supported by regional bodies such as A*STAR, Bio*One Singapore, EDB Singapore, and the Singapore Tourism Board. Over 1,000 biomedical scientists and executives from different parts of the biomedical industry value chain are expected to engage in the exchange of practices and insights.
The six conferences that will present and discuss industry issues are BioManufacturing Asia 2008, BioTherapeutics Asia 2008, BioLicensing Asia 2008, BioInvest Asia 2008, BioInformatics Asia 2008, and BioLogistics Asia 2008.
As a sneak preview into the hot issues, Pharma Asia speaks to two industry leaders to hear their sentiments on the industry. They discuss their views on Asia's manufacturing environment.
Pharma Asia: How is Asia coping with the booming biomanufacturing industry in terms of resources?
Foo: Looking at Singapore, for over the last 18 months, the country has gone from having no commercial scale biologics plant to five plants. The physical facilities are easy enough to put in. The largest bottleneck to future growth shall be trained manpower.
Gray: There appears to be a lack of trained manpower throughout the region with the correct skill sets needed by the bio-manufacturing industry. There is a pool of scientists with theoretical knowledge but generally without the practical experience of working in a mammalian bio-manufacturing plant. At present, there is only a relatively small pool of skilled and experienced scientists that are available in the region. As a consequence, some companies may find it difficult to fill vacancies as their business expands with new bioreactor capacity being installed to meet the growing demand for bio-pharmaceuticals produced in Asia.
Foo: It can be observed that for most parts of Asia, for this set of scientists, their rate of salary increase can rise much faster than the inflation rate. This means the industry is growing rapidly much faster than the pool of people available. However, if left unchecked, this can potentially stymie the future growth of the industry.
Pharma Asia: What are the key issues in IP protection and GMP compliance in Asia?
Foo: Respect for IP is improving in Asia with the appropriate education on the need to protect IP. However, robust in-house company processes need to be in place to prevent IP leakage.
Gray: Some countries are better placed than others in this region. As an example, India is well-positioned for c-GMP manufacturing compliance of bio-pharmaceuticals. The country already has a large number of FDA-approved manufacturing facilities used to produce generics. This experience in gaining FDA approval will be invaluable in gaining approval of plants used to produce bio-pharmaceuticals for supply of product to the US or other highly regulated markets. Ultimately, the compliance required, FDA or EMEA, etc., depends on where the ultimate markets for the product lie.
Pharma Asia: What are the ingredients for success with your partners in Asia?
Gray: Close collaboration is necessary to produce a positive outcome for both parties. With this approach a new clinical project can often be completed in a shorter time frame enabling a company to bring a product to the market at an earlier time.
Pharma Asia: How is Asia coping with the booming biomanufacturing industry in terms of resources?
Smart: Anyone who follows the industry knows of the tremendous growth in manufacturing capacity over the last several years. Having scouted for locations to establish our own operations in Asia, we had the opportunity to visit many different organizations in multiple countries around Asia. Despite the amount of money that has been invested, we struggled to find good acquisition candidates, and ultimately decided that to achieve our goals, we had to build an organization from the ground up.
We chose Singapore for our discovery services business largely because of its strong IP protection laws and also because of the business-friendly environment. We selected India to build our own process chemistry facility and to acquire manufacturing capacity because of the availability of talent and experience in this field. Based on conversations with our customers, it appears that certain regions in Asia are experiencing a significant amount of wage inflation as demand rises for experienced technical talent. This is a trend we are watching with interest as we expand in our Asian locations.
Pharma Asia: What are the key issues in IP protection and GMP compliance in Asia's pharma industry?
Smart: For AMRI, IP protection is of paramount importance. Any contract research/ contract manufacturing organization is expected by its clients to look out for its clients' interests. It is one thing for a pharmaceutical company to put its own IP at risk but when we are entrusted with a client's IP, it is our reputation that is at stake. It is hard to imagine how a contract manufacturer would survive if it allowed a customer's IP to be compromised. For this reason, AMRI has chosen to own its facilities in Asia and elsewhere rather than to work with third party contractors, and to only use its own workforce as opposed to hiring contract workers.
We selected Singapore specifically because of its IP laws and because the country has a strong track record of IP law enforcement. That coupled with strong internal policies that protect our clients' IP combine to the benefit of our clients.
Pharma Asia: What are the ingredients for success with your partners in Asia?
We made the decision several years ago to set up operations in Singapore and India in order not just to avail ourselves to a lower cost environment in which to conduct research, development and manufacturing activities on behalf of our clients, but also to gain access to a rapidly growing market for these services in Asia and Australia. What we have done is to establish our own facilities that are built around the same standards we have had in the US since the earliest days of our existence.
We then initially staffed these operations with US-trained, highly experienced senior managers and tasked them with building their organizations to standards that we believe would be too difficult, if not impossible to find elsewhere in Asia. This strategy has paid off as evidenced by the rapid growth in our operations in Singapore and India, and by the high proportion of business we get from repeat customers. With the growth of the biotechnology/ pharmaceutical industry in places like Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Australia, it is important to not only offer timely and cost-effective services but to be able to back these services up with a great deal of experience. As with the US biotech/small pharmaceutical companies, organizations in Asia that are just setting out to discover their first clinical candidates or those who are getting close to their first commercial products can ill afford to experiment with inexperienced or unprepared contract service providers.
Frequently, these start-up companies have only one opportunity to be successful and clients with whom AMRI has worked in the Pacific region indicate that while cost is important, quality of service is usually what will ultimately determine who they select as a contractor service provider.
Pharma Asia: How is Asia coping with the booming biomanufacturing industry in terms of resources?
Khan:The industry was always considered to be high end of manufacturing and Asia excluded from this so called "high end manufacturing" area. Hence Asia's pool of manpower was not ready for the market current boom. There are many MNC businesses moving or expanding into Asia to handle and capitalize on the fast growing markets such as Jacobs Engineering and Fooster Wheeler in Singapore. Expatriate expertise is also being relocated into Asia.
Some companies may train their Asian staff at their respective headquarters either Europe or the US. Others may outsource the training on non-core areas of operation. This enables their experts to focus on what they do best. Despite these initiatives, the market is still experiencing a lack of adequately trained manpower. Thus, more educational institutions are filling in the gap with biopharmaceutical- specific curriculum such as the polytechnics in Singapore. In the next few years, the situation is likely to ease out with the trained graduates from the tertiary institutions.
Pharma Asia: What are the key issues in IP protection and GMP compliance in Asia?
Khan: Asia has been practicing "reverse engineering". With the growth of IP protection issues, the industry mindset starts to change towards "research and Development". GMP compliance is not strictly enforced in many Asian countries. This creates a mismatch between understanding and implementing GMP.
Pharma Asia: What are the ingredients for success with your partners in Asia?
Khan: The two ingredients are patience and trust. It takes time for Asians to trust a partner and when this is achieved, the relationship can go a long way.
We then initially staffed these operations with US-trained, highly experienced senior managers and tasked them with building their organizations to standards that we believe would be too difficult, if not impossible to find elsewhere in Asia. This strategy has paid off as evidenced by the rapid growth in our operations in Singapore and India, and by the high proportion of business we get from repeat customers. With the growth of the biotechnology/ pharmaceutical industry in places like Taiwan, Korea, Singapore and Australia, it is important to not only offer timely and cost-effective services but to be able to back these services up with a great deal of experience. As with the US biotech/small pharmaceutical companies, organizations in Asia that are just setting out to discover their first clinical candidates or those who are getting close to their first commercial products can ill afford to experiment with inexperienced or unprepared contract service providers.
Frequently, these start-up companies have only one opportunity to be successful and clients with whom AMRI has worked in the Pacific region indicate that while cost is important, quality of service is usually what will ultimately determine who they select as a contractor service provider.
Pharma Asia: How is Asia coping with the booming biomanufacturing industry in terms of resources?
Khan:The industry was always considered to be high end of manufacturing and Asia excluded from this so called "high end manufacturing" area. Hence Asia's pool of manpower was not ready for the market current boom. There are many MNC businesses moving or expanding into Asia to handle and capitalize on the fast growing markets such as Jacobs Engineering and Fooster Wheeler in Singapore. Expatriate expertise is also being relocated into Asia.
Some companies may train their Asian staff at their respective headquarters either Europe or the US. Others may outsource the training on non-core areas of operation. This enables their experts to focus on what they do best. Despite these initiatives, the market is still experiencing a lack of adequately trained manpower. Thus, more educational institutions are filling in the gap with biopharmaceutical- specific curriculum such as the polytechnics in Singapore. In the next few years, the situation is likely to ease out with the trained graduates from the tertiary institutions.
Pharma Asia: What are the key issues in IP protection and GMP compliance in Asia?
Khan: Asia has been practicing "reverse engineering". With the growth of IP protection issues, the industry mindset starts to change towards "research and Development". GMP compliance is not strictly enforced in many Asian countries. This creates a mismatch between understanding and implementing GMP.
Pharma Asia: What are the ingredients for success with your partners in Asia?
Khan: The two ingredients are patience and trust. It takes time for Asians to trust a partner and when this is achieved, the relationship can go a long way.
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