Novartis to set up Singapore research centre

Daniel Vasella, chairman and chief executive of Novatis, looks to expansion in Singapore Keystone

Singapore's plans to become a regional medical sciences hub are getting a boost as Swiss pharma giant Novartis sets up a tropical disease research centre in the city state.

Novartis will invest $122 million (Sfr200 million) in the facility over a five to 10 year period, Novartis chairman and chief executive Daniel Vasella told a news conference on Thursday.

The centre, which will begin operations in 2002, will focus on the discovery and development of treatments for tuberculosis and mosquito-borne dengue fever, which are endemic in the region.

“It’s not really usual to open research institutes for tropical diseases these days,” Vasella said. “Few companies are engaged in this field.”

But diseases such as tuberculosis have come to the attention of the world community as a pressing problem which puts “an enormous burden on people and people’s lives”, Vasella said.

The facility will employ 70 scientists and technicians.

The centre will receive financial support from the Singapore Economic Development Board’s (EDB) $550 million research and development fund set up in June 2000 to promote such activities over the next five years.

The EDB declined to reveal its investment in the Novartis research centre.

The EDB will have first rights to license intellectual property rights discovered at the Singapore facility if Novartis decides not to take the discovery to the market, Vasella added.

swissinfo with agencies