Speech by Mr Lim Chuan Poh, Chairman of A*STAR, at the SingHealth – A*STAR MOU Signing Ceremony on 8 December 2017, at Academia Auditorium, SingHealth

Mr S. Iswaran, Minister for Industry, Ministry of Trade and Industry,
Mr Peter Seah, Chairman, SingHealth
Professor Ivy Ng, Group CEO, SingHealth,
Professor Thomas Coffman, Dean, Duke-NUS Medical School
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Let me thank all of you for your presence to witness this MOU signing ceremony between SingHealth and A*STAR and in particular to Minister Iswaran for gracing this occasion.

This is an event that we have been working towards for some time.

The journey started in June last year when my A*STAR colleagues and I visited this campus very kindly hosted by Ivy and her team.

Then, we learnt about SingHealth’s masterplan, which Ivy briefly shared earlier, and were very excited by SingHealth’s bold vision for the future, as the organisation seeks to further its academic medicine and clinical research efforts, building on the successes of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre.

It was also during this visit that Ivy and I agreed that achieving the desired outcomes laid out in the RIE2020 plan will require more focused and strategic collaboration across the health and biomedical research landscape, to integrate our complementary capabilities for greater impact.

A*STAR has established partnerships with research, academic and healthcare players across the island, including the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Technological University, the National University Health System, and the National Healthcare Group.

It is in this same spirit of collaboration that A*STAR and SingHealth are signing this MOU today.
There are many strategic areas of alignment between our organisations – one is Singapore’s largest public healthcare cluster, the other Singapore’s largest research performer.

The significance of this “MOU” is that it represents the beginning of a more holistic, forward-looking partnership between SingHealth and A*STAR, with an emphasis on key areas that we have identified as having the most impact on the future of healthcare and medicine:
These include precision medicine, smart health and diabetes, and immunotherapy and drug development.

With its world-class clinical expertise and a comprehensive healthcare network spanning a wide range of disease areas, SingHealth is an extremely valuable partner for A*STAR.
It is through our work with clinical partners like SingHealth that A*STAR’s cutting-edge scientific and technological innovations can be translated down-stream to directly impact the lives of patients, and thereby influence healthcare outcomes for the better.
A*STAR and SingHealth have a long history of collaborative projects that have seen many significant achievements to date.
These existing collaborations set a high benchmark for what we should expect from this MOU.

A notable example is an eye research programme established in 2014 called SIPRAD which stands for SERI-IMCB Programme in Retinal Angiogenic Disease. I have to say we have some most interesting acronyms.

SPIRAD focuses on eye diseases, like macular degeneration, which are the leading cause of vision impairment in Singapore and other developed Asian nations.
SIPRAD has established more than 40 agreements, partnerships and projects with academia and industry, including pharma giants Novartis, Merck, Santen, and smaller biotechs like Oceanyx Pharma.

SingHealth and A*STAR also have a number of joint labs in place, and they enable a vibrant cross exchange of ideas and the smoother translation of research findings to clinical practice.

The POLARIS labs, with presence in both SGH and Biopolis, have facilitated fruitful collaborations between A*STAR and SingHealth researchers in piloting the application of clinical genomics in the treatment of medical diseases in Singapore and the region.

POLARIS researchers have worked together to develop tests to aid in the diagnosis and management of cancer and genetic eye diseases, all of which are in use in clinical settings and have attracted considerable industry interest in terms of licensing.

The good work done at the POLARIS joint labs has demonstrated the use of precision medicine in healthcare and the benefits it can bring to the patients.
Building on the success of POLARIS, precision medicine is one of the three key collaboration areas outlined in today’s MOU.

In particular, the focus is on harnessing big data for precision medicine, which will tap on A*STAR’s bioinformatics and computational capabilities in data storage, consolidation and analytics.

The other two focus areas of the MOU, smart heath innovations in diabetes care  and immunotherapy and drug development, will leverage on A*STAR’s spectrum of expertise, from medtech, robotics, and clinical imaging for the former, to immunology, informatics, and immuno-monitoring for the latter.

However, above and beyond tapping on the combined resources of both organisations, one of the most important aspects of this MOU is that it will facilitate researchers, clinicians and investigators in A*STAR and SingHealth to work more seamlessly together across the organisations.

There are already several individuals who hold joint A*STAR and SingHealth appointments, such as Professor Patrick Tan, who is the Deputy Executive Director of A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) while concurrently serving as Director of the SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine (PRISM).

With the signing of this MOU, we can expect to see more such individuals taking on joint appointments, and talent exchange between both organisations will be encouraged and supported through more coordinated efforts in training.

In closing, today’s MOU is both a formalisation and a step up in the relationship between A*STAR and SingHealth.

It will allow us to jointly innovate and explore new treatment modalities that will make an impact on patients, the industry, and our economy.

I should use this occasion to thank  Dr Benjamin Seet, Executive Director of A*STAR’s Biomedical Research Council, and Associate Professor Tan Say Beng, Group Director for Research at SingHealth, who have both worked very hard since June last year to shepherd the two organisations to today’s milestone.
I should also want to acknowledge the cooperation and support of many of the clinical and research leaders from both Singhealth and A*STAR for working together to shape the areas of collaboration.
We all know that ultimately, this MOU is about how the two communities can work seamlessly together to deliver meaningful and impactful outcomes.

Last but not least, a big thank you to Ivy and her team at SingHealth for graciously hosting us today.

Thank you very much.