Distinguished Guests,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Good Morning.

Introduction

It gives me great pleasure to join all of you this morning at the opening of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Good Laboratory Practice (GLP) Workshop. I would also like to extend a warm welcome to our international experts who will be sharing with us their knowledge and experience in managing GLP compliance programmes in their countries.

Biomedical Sciences and Chemicals Industries

All of us recognize the tremendous growth opportunities in the biomedical sciences (BMS) and chemicals industries, both globally and in the region. For example, Asia which houses two-thirds of the world’s population has a booming pharmaceutical sector which is expected to grow at a pace that outperforms the other regions. The emerging markets of China and India, in particular, are attracting more interest and investments from large pharmaceutical multinational companies.

As the springboard to Asia, Singapore is well positioned to be the next global hub for BMS. For example, some 70%[1] of clinical trials samples originating in Asia are sent to Singapore for testing before being sent to the USA. We also have about 50 biomedical laboratories and research institutes conducting research and clinical trials of novel drug products and medical devices in Singapore. Just two weeks ago, GlaxoSmithKline announced plans to invest S$300 million to build a plant in Singapore to produce pediatric vaccines, which will protect children against diseases such as meningitis and typhoid. This is only the second such plant by Glaxo Smith Kline world wide.

It is clear that BMS in Singapore has seen rapid development in the past five years, with manufacturing output in Singapore enjoying compounded annual growth rates of 23% since 2000, reaching S$18 billion last year. For the next phase of growth in BMS, Singapore will further strengthen its capabilities in pre-clinical safety studies, as well as translational and clinical research to bring discoveries from the bench to the market. This will mean greater opportunities for enterprises in these sectors as well as the supporting industries such as testing laboratories.

For the chemicals industry, Singapore has also attracted some of the world's leading petroleum, petrochemicals and specialty chemicals giants, including ExxonMobil, Shell and Sumitomo Chemical by offering them a cost-competitive and synergistic environment to operate in. Last year, our chemicals sector put up a sterling performance with an output of S$67.3 billion, a 64% increase over 2003.

Need for GLP Compliance Programme in Singapore

The Government is committed to help our enterprises tap the growth opportunities in the BMS and chemicals industries, of which one key enabler is the provision of the necessary infrastructure. In this regard, we understand that research work done in Singapore is not accepted in many developed countries, as they require research data to be GLP compliant.

The GLP compliance programme is a quality system which helps R&D laboratories to adopt systematic processes in planning, performing, monitoring, recording and archiving their pre-clinical safety studies. Such a system will give customers greater assurance of the integrity of the research data, and also enable us to reconstruct the studies in their entirety from the archived data. Besides increasing customer confidence, the GLP programme is also important for several other reasons.

First, the programme will help companies gain better access to markets and business opportunities in the 30 OECD countries, which produce a combined 60% of the world’s goods and services. With the global pre-clinical development market estimated to grow to S$32 billion by 2010[2], Singapore will be well positioned to take a share of this pie with the implementation of the GLP programme.

Second, researchers and laboratories will be able to shorten the time required to bring their new products to market with the GLP programme. Currently, BMS and chemicals companies or laboratories conducting research in Singapore need to send new pharmaceutical, agricultural or veterinary products for testing overseas. Having a GLP framework in Singapore is the first step towards helping local laboratories and research institutes gain acceptance for pre-clinical safety testing data in all the OECD countries. This will shorten the time-to-market for new products and services, and also avoid expensive duplicate tests.

In that regard, the GLP programme is an important tool that will help grow the BMS and chemicals industries in Singapore, thereby attracting more foreign investments to Singapore for these industries.

Industry and Government Partnership

Therefore, I am happy to announce that SPRING Singapore will be taking the lead to implement a GLP Compliance programme, which is expected to be launched in October this year. SPRING Singapore has also been designated as the GLP Monitoring Authority for Singapore, and will be supported by agencies such as the Health Sciences Authority (HSA), the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) and the Economic Development Board (EDB).

Government support alone will not be enough. For us to succeed and realize the benefits of such a programme to share in the growth of the BMS and chemicals industries, we need to grow a base of GLP compliant players. While this programme is voluntary, I urge enterprises in the key BMS and chemicals sectors, as well as the other supporting industries to participate and achieve GLP compliance.

With this, I hope that all of you will find this two-day workshop a useful one. Thank you.