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

ASIA BUSINESS COUNCIL HONG KONG UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY 7 0 Temasek (Singapore) Extraordinary Endeavors in Turbulent Times Leveraging its investment expertise, Temasek supported the SMEs by placing or- ders in advance, enabling them to balance their financial commitments. Temasek also brought together all the stakeholders, giving input and responding to feed- back. At the time of writing, the 3D printed NP swabs are ready for deployment, with a production capacity of approximately two million swabs per month. Production of Saline for COVID-19 Diagnostic Kits But the story did not end there. After a person is swabbed, the swab stick needs to be placed into a tube to facilitate reliable transportation to the lab, and the tubes have to contain a liquid mixture of reagents that allow the virus to remain viable. Not surprisingly, there was also a global shortage of tubes for this liquid reagent mix, which is called the Universal Transport Media (UTM). Again, Temasek had to go upstream to look at reagents that could be sourced and produced in Singapore. When the scientific literature revealed Phosphate Buffered Saline to be an effective, locally manufacturable media that worked well for coronaviruses, Temasek partnered with the National University Health System (NUHS) and SMEs Racer Medical and Axil Scientific to produce the saline in Singapore to cater for local needs. This was not the first time Temasek had worked with these SMEs, having known them through Enterprise Singapore, the government statutory board that champions the needs of SMEs. As with the swabs, it was Temasek that helped kick start the manufacturing capabilities of these local SMEs. After ensuring the supply of diagnostic kits, Temasek was also involved in ramping up testing, especially for asymptomatic carriers. In order to swab and test as many people as possible, Temasek led efforts to train the testers, plan the testing, and send teams out to test people. In Alsagoff’s words, “It was considered necessary to implement ubiquitous testing, instantaneous isolation, and pervasive contact tracing.” Medical Research on Treatment of COVID-19 Aside from enabling testing and diagnosis, Temasek also recognized the importance of spearheading local research on treatment of COVID-19. To that end, Tychan, one of Temasek’s portfolio companies, successfully gained approval from the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) to start clinical trials on a newly developed monoclonal antibody (mAb) that specifically targets the virus that causes COVID-19. After ensuring the supply of diagnostic kits, Temasek was also involved in ramping up testing...[It] led efforts to train the testers, plan the testing, and send teams out to test people. In Alsagoff’s words, “it was considered necessary to implement ubiquitous testing, instantaneous isolation, and pervasive contact tracing.”