Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times: Asian Innovation, Inclusion, and Impact during COVID-19

ASIA BUSINESS COUNCIL HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 69 Temasek (Singapore) Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times SMEs willing to commit to production of medical supplies or equipment, Temasek was able to place substantive orders, giving them the capital and confidence to quickly scale up their production resources into the millions. 3D Printing of Swabs for COVID-19 Diagnostic Kits To begin with, detection is crucial to contain the virus, and Temasek found itself working closely with its global and local medical partners to procure reliable diagnostic kits, find new ways of testing, and build up local development and production capabilities for essential supplies. One of the first things Temasek learned was that the full diagnostic kit for COVID-19 consists of the swab sticks, transport media, as well as the tubes to hold the media, with all of these being essential components. Rather than the test kits themselves, there was initially a global shortage of the swabs that enable the tests to be performed. One of the major suppliers of the nasopharyngeal or NP swab was a company based in Lombardy, Italy (itself an epicenter of the virus outbreak), and countries including Singapore were unable to access supplies speedily when Italy was in lockdown. When it became clear that swabs would run out, Temasek turned to one of its portfolio companies based in San Diego, which was engaged in 3D printing of swabs with the University of California San Diego (UCSD). 3D printed swabs were around two times the price of regular swabs, but Temasek decided that this was a better option than running out of swabs. Temasek brought together clinicians in hospitals for user feedback and developed the prototypes in engineering research labs with 3D printing capabilities. As Alsagoff remarked, “This took several months as we had to go through clinical trials – no shortcuts.” In the next stage, Temasek worked with local SME production partners Eye2Eye and Structo, and local hospitals and Institutions of Higher Learning (IHLs) like the National University Health System (NUHS), the National Additive Manufacturing Innovation Cluster (NAMIC), and the National University of Singapore (NUS), to ramp up local manufacturing capabilities. 3D Printing of Swabs