Maccine Receives GLP Accreditation from SPRING Singapore

Maccine has been formally acknowledged by SPRING Singapore as Good Laboratory Practice (GLP)-compliant.

Leigh Berryman, CEO of Maccine, comments, “Maccine is a fully GLP-compliant, internationally recognized Contract Research Organization (CRO) performing and submitting data to multiple international regulatory authorities. With Singapore attaining the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development Mutual Acceptance of Data framework (OECD-MAD) status, our GLP status allows our test results to be recognized and accepted by these major markets. The OECD-MAD status will also encourage more biomedical and pharmaceutical companies to conduct their testing here, which could in turn result in more business for us. “

“While we do not expect to expand our operational facilities outside Singapore, we have plans to intensify our marketing activities to increase our client base worldwide,” said Berryman.

Singapore is the first non-OECD member in Asia to achieve the OECD-MAD status. To gain the recognition, Singapore has gone through examination by the OECD, to ensure that the country’s test facilities are as rigorous as those in the OECD countries and are able to produce pre-clinical data of comparable quality. On top of having a GLP program, Singapore needs to also demonstrate that it has a robust system of managing the GLP program and the facilities, as well as trained personnel to support the testing industry.

Maccine is one of the three GLP-registered facilities in Singapore. Its safety assessment work comprises about 30 percent of its orders, with most of them from the US and the European Union. With Singapore’s OECD-MAD status, the company expects to see an increase in demand for its safety assessment work, and anticipates that this will grow to form more than 50 percent of its future orders.

Philip Yeo, Chairman, SPRING Singapore said, “The OECD-MAD framework allows the research laboratories in some 30 countries, including many of our key export markets like the US, European Union and Japan to recognize and accept each other’s research data. This framework addresses a policy gap in bringing research to market, and is critical for growing Singapore’s biomedical sciences initiative. Our acceptance into the OECD-MAD framework will help to expedite the approval of new chemicals and drugs for sale in overseas markets. Companies can now fully leverage on Singapore’s GLP-compliant testing facilities to accelerate their drug discovery and development activities, enjoying shorter time-to-market for new products. The re-testing of products and multiple evaluations by overseas regulators for GLP compliance will be reduced or no longer necessary.”