New clinical unit to boost Singapore's research abilities
By Claire Huang

SINGAPORE  : Singapore's position as a clinical research hub in the region is expected to be given a boost with the opening of a new clinical research unit.
Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan launched the S$20 million SingHealth Investigational Medicine Unit on Friday.
It's funded over five years by SingHealth, Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School, the Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences and the National Medical Research Council.
Located on the Singapore General Hospital campus, it is the second such facility after the one at the National University Hospital.
Clinical research has been growing steadily in Asia, especially in Singapore. Locally, the number of clinical trials has grown by 60 per cent between 2007 and 2009. Just last year, the Health Sciences Authority certified close to 290 clinical trials and the numbers are growing.
This new unit is expected to further bridge the gap between scientific research and healthcare delivery.

"With this, we will be able to develop the human capital side of things - meaning those who are interested and want to do clinical trials as a career, they will have the infrastructure support to do this for the longer term," said Professor Fong Kok Yong, group director of Clinical Research at SingHealth.

Prof Fong said the new unit will focus on earlier phase research, something which is lacking here.
He points out that it's important to build up expertise in this area. "The earlier phase trials are where you're more at the cutting edge because these are the newer therapeutic agents that you want to test and see how it works on humans and how does it react within the human body," said Prof Fang.

"The early phase trials are where you have to have a dedicated facility to support it because many of these deal with volunteers or patients, and they may also need overnight stays within a dedicated place. So this (new unit) would be able to help support those who are interested in doing these earlier phase trials."

In 2007, the US accounted for close to 80 per cent of new global clinical trial initiations, while Asia Pacific accounted for less than 5 per cent. Professor Soo Khee Chee, Deputy CEO of SingHealth said this means there's tremendous potential for Asia, in particular Singapore, to develop in this area.

"If a company were to do a research in Singapore, it's like doing it in three different countries - China, India or Indonesia. And if you couple that with the very high standard of medicine that we have here, whatever clinical trials we do here will be more easily accepted by regulatory authorities in America or Europe, than if they were done in other countries," said Prof Soo. This new facility has already attracted more than 20 clinical trials and 40 per cent of these trials are led by local doctors.

Besides clinical trials, studies are also being conducted at this new unit and one such example is this chronobiology lab, where doctors are trying to find out how the human body clock works. Most of the trials will focus on cancer while other areas of research include cardiology and psychiatry.  The unit will also harness the expertise of more than 40 medical disciplines.
Given the high patient visits, the unit currently has close to 1,000 volunteers willing to participate in clinical trials conducted at the new unit. - CNA