Singapore Proves Fruitful for Biotechnology Firms : Industry: The southeast Asian state has pegged high-tech goods and services as the wave of its future.

Faced with yet another question about just what he does, plant cloner Ron Vunsh looked at the slide of a seedling in a test tube and makes a stab at explaining the miracle.

“We don’t breed plants, we multiply them,” the soft-spoken scientist told a group of visitors at Plantek International Pte. Ltd. “You don’t need the seed.”

Since 1983, the cloning work of Vunsh and his colleagues at Plantek, one of the biotechnology companies that has taken root in Singapore, has been fruitful.

Plantek labs can now annually produce from little more than scraps of leaves up to 8 million seedlings, ranging from orchids to tropical fruits and nuts, for nurseries. All you need is the chemical soup and the right conditions.

“Tissue culture has the ability to produce millions of plants in a very short time, and of a specific quality,” Plantek Director Sim Kim Chuan said. “It’s all in finding the right protocol to induce growth.”

Plantek, and foreign firms such as British drug giant Glaxo Holdings and U.S. medical instrument maker Millipore Corp., are finding the protocol just fine in Singapore.

The southeast Asian island state has pegged high-tech, value-added goods and services as the wave of its future. In Singapore, where the proven formula for success is active government involvement in new industries, the authorities are leaving no stone unturned in biotech.

“Biotechnology has been targeted as a key industry of strategic interest for priority development in Singapore,” Teoh Yong Sea, director of Singapore’s National Biotechnology Program, told a conference here earlier this month.

Since NBP’s founding in 1988, the government has spent $35 million ($60 million Singapore) on biotechnology manpower, education, infrastructure and incentive programs.

In 1987, Singapore established an Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology. IMCB’s 160 researchers, recruited worldwide, work mainly in cancer and other cell diseases, virology and immunology--and plant genetics. The idea is to attract staff and projects that also attract companies.

“We have adopted a niche approach focusing on certain industry clusters which are relevant and unique to this region,” Teoh said.

IMCB’s Director H. Tan, said he wants to bring in more foreign specialists to raise the level of research.

“The key to the biotech field is to build a good research culture in Singapore,” Tan said. “My wish is for all my people to be invited as consultants.”

Singapore is nurturing the biotech industry with a wide-ranging package of financial incentives, including a 10-year tax holiday and attractive joint-venture financing in research and development projects.

Plantek, helped in early days by government investment, is now held mostly by corporate heavyweights such as Indonesia’s Salim Group, Japan’s Sumitomo Corp. and Kyowa Hakko Kogyo, Native Plants Inc. of the United States and India’s Tata Enterprises.

All this for a company with about $590,000 ($1 million Singapore) in sales last year.

“I won’t say we are profitable but we see potential in the future,” Plantek’s Sim said.

Government interests retain a nearly 10% share in Plantek. IMCB, though a pure research institute, also provides the government with a reliable filter with which to judge the value of biotech projects for investment purposes, Tan said.