Dr Tan serves also as the chair of the Board of Directors of NZBIO, the New Zealand industry association for bioscience. He joined LCT as managing director of LCT New Zealand in 2004, and served the company as chief executive officer from 2008-2010. His major accomplishments include taking DIABECELL, the world's first animal to human cell therapy program, to regulatory approval for clinical trials under international guidelines, developing the designated pathogen-free pig facility suitable for human therapeutics under international guidelines.

Dr Tan also initiated several strategic commercial alliances and created significant international peer and governmental support for LCT. Dr Tan stepped down from his role at LCT in 2010 to work as an independent consultant to several biotechnology companies in New Zealand, including LCT. Before this Dr Tan was CEO of CenTec, a biotech company spun off from Centenary Institute for Cancer and Cell Biology, affiliated to the University of Sydney, from 2002-2004.

Dr Tan was founding deputy director and head of Health Research at Genesis Research and Development Corporation from 1994-2002, where he managed the intellectual property and patent filings and the clinical trial program.

Prior to his career in the biotechnology industry, Dr Tan was associate professor of immunology at The University of Auckland and rheumatology consultant at Auckland Hospital. He graduated from the University of Singapore and undertook postgraduate training at the University of Toronto.