• Puts emphasis on cancer, cardiovascular and eye diseases over the next five years
  • Collaboration will strengthen Bayer Healthcare’s existing partnerships with SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC)
  • Partnership will also enable researchers from various institutions to come together

Bayer Healthcare and the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) have announced their plan to expand translational and clinical research with Singapore research institutions to tackle major health threats in Asia, namely in oncology, cardiology and ophthalmology.

The aim of this collaboration is to initiate a portfolio that focuses on cancer, cardiovascular and eye diseases over the next five years.

This collaboration will strengthen Bayer Healthcare’s existing partnerships with SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre (AMC) and National University Health System (NUHS).

They are currently conducting a joint research on oncology, and will be extending it to the research areas of cardiology and ophthalmology.

Bayer Healthcare, together with other grant funding agencies in Singapore, will potentially be investing up to S$30million in these projects.

EDB will be facilitating the interactions with local institutions who wish to participate.

“Support from government and industry partners is crucial to further translational and clinical research efforts,” said Professor Soo Khee Chee, Deputy Group CEO (Research & Education), SingHealth; Director of the National Cancer Centre Singapore; Vice Dean of Clinical and Faculty Affairs at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore.

“With this support and greater synergy among multidisciplinary collaborators, we can enhance and accelerate the R&D process to achieve more medical breakthroughs that will improve health outcomes and benefit our patients.”

This partnership will also enable researchers from various institutions to come together to develop innovative therapeutics to patients more efficiently.

“By working with our partners, we can gain first-hand insights from researchers on diseases prevalent in Singapore and Asia."

"We will set up a platform to discuss potential new collaborations, from target discovery projects to early clinical studies,” said Professor Andreas Busch, Head of Bayer HealthCare Global Drug Discovery and Member of the Executive Committee of Bayer HealthCare. 

At the Bayer-EDB press event on 8 July, Professor Soo shared on the value of having Singapore and SingHealth Duke-NUS AMC on board this partnership.

At AMCs, clinicians and clinician scientists are able to provide clinical relevance to biomedical research, ensuring that R&D is applicable to patient care.   Clinical trials are also made possible as clinicians are key to recruiting patients into trials.

On top of this, the local AMCs possess their own network of sister organisations in Asia Pacific, which is valuable for phase II and III clinical trials that require a larger pool of trial participants.