GSK opens new Singapore facility and doubles staff
laboratory in Singapore and plans to double the number of
researchers hired at the site to 60.
The facility is located in Singapore's biomedical research hub, Biopolis, where the drug giant has already had an R&D presence since 2004, focusing on developing new treatments for Alzheimer's disease and schizophrenia. The new S$20m (€10m) operations are part of GSK's existing Centre for Research in Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders and will allow the company to beef up its research capabilities in this field. "This new investment will give us the capabilities to design and develop compounds for selection in clinical trials in the next few years that will be born and raised in Singapore," said Dr Neil Miller, director of Medicinal Chemistry. "Our goal is to identify a clinical development candidate by the end of 2007 and we are on track to achieving that," said Dr Paul Chapman, director and head of GSK's Centre for Research in Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders. He added that the key drivers for the additional GSK investment in Singapore are the quality of the research base and the access to high quality graduates and researchers. According to GSK, the new facility will enable its researchers to adopt a collaborative approach that is at the cutting edge of work practices at GSK research and development facilities around the world - combining both biology and chemistry research in the same facility. Although biology and chemistry research will typically be done in separate laboratories because there are different considerations for each discipline, the firm said that by having the biologists and chemists working side-by-side it hopes to reduce the time taken to identify clinical development drug candidates. The S$62m Centre for Research in Cognitive and Neurodegenerative Disorders was GSK's first pre-clinical research facility within the Asia Pacific and since then the firm has demonstrated its affinity for Singapore, planting its Asia-Pacific headquarters, as well as investing over over S$1bn in a number of manufacturing, research and development, and sales and marketing operations in the country. GSK has been stepping up its involvement in the budding biotech region after indicating it will rely more heavily on Asian R&D in the future.
