Singapore is primed for the launch of start-up companies in the life sciences. Last month, the deputy prime minister Tony Tan Keng Yam announced a US$1 billion “technopreneurship” fund, signalling the island state's commitment to cultivating venture businesses and venture funds.

This follows other recent initiatives, such as the $20 million Life Science Investment fund established last November by the National Science and Technology Board and the Economic Development Board to commercialize home-grown and overseas technology in the life sciences. This was followed in December by the new Centre for Drug Evaluation to evaluate new drugs according to international standards.

Singapore is targeting the development of drugs, medical and food products and agrobiotechnology. It has been building strengths in these areas over the past decade. For example, the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, established in the late 1980s, has won wide respect. In 1993, it entered into a joint venture with the British pharmaceutical giant GlaxoWellcome to use molecular and cell technology to screen natural products for drugs. And in 1995 the institute spun-off Singapore's first life-science venture, GeneSing, which is developing health care products for the Asia-Pacific market.

More recently, the Institute of Molecular Agrobiology, established in 1995, has set up a joint venture with Monsanto of the United States to commercialize the use in China of cotton that has been genetically modified to fight bollworm pest (see Nature 383, 14; 1996). And a new BioInformatics Center at Singapore National University has created a successful spin-off holding company, Bioinformatrix, and a US-based venture, KRIS Technology, which sells bioinformatics software.

Western investors are sitting up and taking note. One group that has invested in the early stages of life-science ventures in the United States and Europe has been investigating opportunities in the Far East for the past three years. It has concluded that Singapore is where it is “most comfortable”, and is soon due to announce a significant investment. “In addition to the frequently cited attributes of Singapore (transparent legal and accounting practices, English language and education), we are particularly impressed with Singapore's commitment to supporting techno-entrepreneurship, and the city state's outstanding Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology,” says one investor of this group.

The Singapore government is well aware that it has to develop a whole spectrum of talent, including not only researchers and entrepreneurs, but also investment bankers, analysts, venture capitalists, and patent and corporate lawyers. It is adopting an open-door policy to draw in talent from around the world, and jobs in these areas will abound in the years ahead.