Some of the new trends in Asia that the biopharma industry will see in 2013 will be greater licensing activity and innovative drug development amongst domestic pharma or biotech companies in China, South Korea, India, Australia and Taiwan, which is heavily supported by the government. This could lead to industry consolidation.

We will also see strong emphasis on stratified medicine (personalized medicine, pharmacogenomics, observational studies and others) in the developed markets in Asia for better health outcomes. Furthermore, new therapies are also being developed for Asian diseases.

BioSingapore is looking at developing a talent and financing pipeline for local bioscience enterprises, nurturing new bioscience start-ups, promoting regional collaboration. It aims at amplifying the A*Star Get-Up program for local biosciences companies to access A*Star research talent.

We also intend to work with SPRING Singapore and ACE to put together a compilation of Singapore's successful and promising biosciences enterprises to showcase their technologies as well as assist them to get financing or partnership opportunities globally. BioSingapore is also working hard to sign reciprocity agreements with regional biosciences associations to increase the visibility of Singapore biosciences enterprises as well as encourage regional collaborations

Financially, uncertainty still looms. Therefore, many companies are facing a challenging time to manage costs and increase growth. This has resulted in many companies being more open to new commercial models. Many Singaporean biosciences companies are facing challenges in gaining local talent with management or technical experience. There is also significant dearth of locally developed technologies that can be commercialized.