Singapore’s thriving pharmaceutical industry

The pharmaceutical industry is experiencing a welcome boom in Asia’s powerhouse Singapore. Pharmaceutical jobs are said to increase in Singapore by 60 per cent, or 1,000 jobs, over the next three to four years.

Pharmaceutical companies have invested 2.4 billion dollars in Singapore, setting up eight biologics manufacturing plants within the last five years, reports Channel News Asia. The biologics sector alone now employs 1,700 people and – together with the biomedical sciences industry – contributes 5 per cent to Singapore's GDP.

The increasing demand for talent in the sector is being fostered by the government by encouraging more training for researchers. A*Star's Bioprocessing Technology Institute (BTI) is the key institute in Singapore training researchers in the biologics field. Over the past seven years, BTI has trained about 180 science and engineering graduates and helped place them in pharmaceutical firms such as Roche, GSK and Novartis.

But Roche’s Technical Operations’ vice president and general manager in Singapore said that the demand for biologics talent still outstrips the supply. Aart Buiter told Channel News Asia: "Indeed, with all start-ups that are coming to Singapore, we see that we still need a lot of new colleagues in the industry. The estimate is that at least for the next couple of years, we need up to 700 new colleagues in the biologics industry, and that's not even talking about the entire (pharmaceutical) industry. So there's a big need for talent."

http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/business/singapore/jobs-in-singapore/883040.html