Speech by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong at the 30th/40th Anniversary of GSK's pharmaceutical manufacturing plants

Sir Andrew Witty
CEO, GSK

Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen

I am very happy to be here to celebrate this milestone with you. It is not my first visit to the plant, I have been here before and I am happy to be back again. First may I congratulate Sir Andrew on being conferred the Public Service Star (Distinguished Friends of Singapore) this year.

GSK and Singapore have enjoyed an enduring partnership. One year is long enough to know the problems; after thirty years, you know it works. Glaxo, which was a GSK legacy company, established a sales office here back in 1959 when we gained self-government. In 1972, Beecham Pharmaceuticals, which is another legacy company, set up the first ever pharmaceutical manufacturing plant by an MNC in Quality Road to produce amoxicillin. And ten years later, Glaxo built this Jurong Plant to manufacture Ranitidine, Zantac, which contributed to Glaxo’s international success. It was a big decision for Glaxo and the Managing Director of Beecham Pharmaceuticals wrote a glowing testimonial for Singapore and Glaxo’s Board took a leap of faith and agreed to build the plant. No doubt they indulged in some pharmaceutical tourism before they decided.

The early years were exciting. Jurong plant was constructed near the forests and I am told they once discovered a large python coiled around the tank. So Glaxo and Beecham were pioneers in Singapore and in 2000 they merged and became GSK. GSK today undertakes the most complete range of business activities of any major pharmaceutical company in Singapore. The Quality Road plant, you have heard about it, is key to GSK’s Emerging Market strategies, supplying cost-effective and green amoxicillin to new markets. And this Jurong plant is a prototype of GSK’s “Factory of the Future” – manufacturing now 12 drugs for global markets, and is one of GSK’s major launch sites globally. So GSK’s Emerging Markets and Asia-Pacific Hub, which is based here in Singapore, manages close to 40% of GSK’s global revenues. And it has invested a total of $1.6b and employs more than 1,000 employees.

GSK’s success has benefitted Singapore greatly, and in many ways beyond its economic contributions. This positive experience has validated our economic strategy and policies, and given many other companies the confidence to invest in Singapore. It has been an important incubator for talent. You have heard how GSK has trained many young officers in the early years to bootstrap their operations, and how several have risen to higher positions in GSK, but also several of them in other companies. There is one in Abbott, Mr Lim Yee Fong; there is one in Novartis, Mr Mark Chua; and there is one in Hyflux, which is a non competing industry, Ms. Olivia Lum. In 1989, Philip Yeo had dinner with Sir Paul Girolami, who was then-Chairman of Glaxo, and Sir Paul asked Philip what GSK could do for EDB and for Singapore. So Philip, who is never shy to ask, immediately requested Sir Paul to get Glaxo to sponsor a scholarship that would fund 30 of Singapore’s brightest young students every year to top UK and US schools. And Sir Paul agreed quickly, and two cheques arrived in the email, S$25m each, before any contracts or agreements were signed, which demonstrated the deep trust between GSK and Singapore. The Glaxo-EDB scholarship has since benefitted over 300 students and GSK recently donated another S$30 million, matched by S$20 million from Singapore, to create the GSK-EDB trust fund to support talent development in sustainable manufacturing and regional health policy initiatives.

At the same time, GSK has benefitted from Singapore’s efforts to develop our biomedical sciences (BMS) sector. For example, we have built up our S&T capabilities by making science and maths compulsory in school, by attracting MNCs to improve our technical skills, and by increasing the scale of our R&D. We have developed BMS as the 4th pillar of our manufacturing industry. We have built Biopolis and Fusionopolis, we have attracted and developed talent. And overall we have created an ecosystem that supports the pharma industry in Singapore, with a sound regulatory and ethical framework, for example in terms of intellectual property protection and in terms of clinical trials, and also animal trials, and also close partnerships with industry and with our international counterparts. BMS is now an important industry, and accounts for nearly 5% of our GDP. Many leading pharma and medical technology companies manufacture products and base their regional and international headquarters here. And they also conduct R&D doing drug discovery, translational and clinical research and process development. They have provided 18,000 good jobs, 70% of which are held by locals.

Our economy is changing. There is greater focus than ever on upgrading and not just on expanding. We are maximising the use of every worker and every piece of land. We are trying our best to raise productivity across the whole value chain by upgrading our workforce, embracing new technologies and strengthening the overall eco-system, making sure the synergies work, making sure everything works, and you can be sure your plant is producing, 24 hours a day, day after day, year after year. And so we maintain our pro-business environment, with low taxes, good infrastructure, open to foreign talent and encouraging employers to develop the local talent pool at the same time.

Manufacturing will remain a pillar of this economy even as it changes. It creates good jobs for Singaporeans, it integrates well with services and with our innovation emphasis, it broadens our economic base so that we are not overly dependent on one sector. We cannot be in all industries, some will not fit into Singapore, but high value, knowledge-intensive industries, like BMS, will have a role here for a very long time. So we will continue to encourage investments in BMS and the Government will invest in promoting the BMS industry. The products may be small in size, one kilogram a year, but it is a very precious kilogram. And many, many man years of research and work and fine tuning and engineering and organisation has gone into that. And that is why it commands high premiums and requires good individual skills, tight system discipline, as well as rigorous IPR regimes. A simple laundry list, not so easy to tick off in many countries in the world.

But that is how Singapore has to be, to overcome the constraints of size, and to hold our own against bigger and much better-resourced competitors. So I hope to continue strengthening partnership with GSK. I am glad that we have jointly developed a 10-Year Strategic Roadmap, we did this three years ago, to identify how we can continue to work together to exploit the new opportunities which are all around us, and I am confident that the Roadmap will succeed, and we can continue to prosper and to seize future together.

Thank you very much!