What benefits do you provide to the companies post the technology transfer?
We work on the basis of building ecosystems. We share market intelligence with our SMEs and start-ups, we do outreach via speaker events like the Distinguished Technopreneur Speaker Forum, and we organise Forums and Conferences that involve different players in the ecosystem.

For example, at Media Exploits, a recent forum focusing on digital media and infocomm technology, we brought together 300 people including scientists, start-ups, SMEs, VCs and customers of the start-ups that have licensed our technology. We continue working with our licensees long after and grow together after the first contract is signed as the relationship should be a long term one.

How many projects are with ETPL at the moment for tech transfer in the life sciences, medical technolgoy, diagnostics and pharmaceuticals?
About one-fourth of our licenses between FY 2009-11 were in the area of medical technology, biologics and biotechnology.

Please tell us about one-of-the-major success stories that has been commercialized and is now giving revenues to the company in the life sciences, pharma, medical devices, diagnostics segment?
Curiox Biosystems is a Singapore-based bioinstrumentation company that aims to accelerate the progress of research in life sciences, diagnostics and drug discovery through its innovative "wall-less" DropArray platform. Curiox is currently the only company that is able to provide a miniaturized, simple, accurate, inexpensive and convenient platform for conducting bioassays. This innovation improves the quality of healthcare as clinicians can now prescribe proper treatment on the spot, enhancing the quality of medical service considerably. The company was incubated by ETPL and spun off from A*STAR's Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) in 2008.

AIT Biotech, a business division of Advance Interactive Technologies (AIT) group, a quality industrial IT hardware to solutions in Australia and the South Pacific region, licensed five different diagnostic assay technologies (TB, HIV, flu, chikungunya, dengue) through ETPL, of which three have generated sales. Tan Tock Seng Hospital and the Ministry of Health are currently using the diagnostic kits to screen and diagnose all chikungunya and dengue cases in Singapore due to the high specificity, sensitivity and multiplexing capability of A*STAR's technology. The technology was developed at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology (IMBC) and later on, at the Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC).