SINGAPORE: Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said it plans to raise the number of clinical trials it's conducting by 10 per cent this year out of its Singapore operations. This is in line with its strategy to grow in research and development capabilities in Asia.
Singapore's Raffles Hospital is where Pfizer now runs a facility conducting Phase 1 studies and clinical trials for a range of drugs.
These are aimed at treating diseases like HIV, cancer and high cholesterol.
To protect patients' privacy, television cameras aren't allowed inside.
The Singapore facility, in which Pfizer has invested more than S$60 million has seen the volume of clinical trials rise 35 per cent since 2001.
23 trials were conducted here last year and the centre aims to increase this by 10 per cent this year.
Chong Chew Lan, medical director, Pfizer, said: "We definitely plan to grow the number of the trials that we can conduct here and we would like to expand our capabilities into different areas as well. We would like to increase our capabilities in our pharmacy in terms of the types of preparations that we can do in our pharmacy."
Pfizer told a news conference that its R&D efforts will focus on Asia and emerging markets.
While it is still mainly research and development in the region, Pfizer hopes to start producing drugs specific to the Asian market within the next three to five years.
Martin Mackay, president, PharmaTherapeutics, R&D, Pfizer, said: “We want to grow our revenues in Asia because it's a growth area and there are no questions about it. But we also want to come up with great medicines for Asian patients and then that will fit exactly into our strategic plans.”
China, in particular, is an important market with R&D spend amounting to over US$150 million from 2005 to the first half of 2009.
Annual R&D spend in China grew seven-fold in four and a half years. - CNA/vm
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