| By Liaw Wy-Cin, Newsdesk Reporter | ||
 |  | Schering-Plough plans to open a clinical research unit later in the year to test its drugs on patients. -- PHOTO: SHARIYA YAHAYA |
Occupying two floors at the biomedical sciences hub Biopolis, the centre will focus on indicators which can better show how well its drugs will work.
Called biomarkers, these indicators, which can include the number of tumour cells circulating in the blood, for example, are expected to show at an earlier stage, how well a potential drug is working. This is expected to bring down the costs of developing a drug as a large majority of drugs fail in the late, costly stages of human testing.
Schering-Plough will also open a clinical research unit later in the year, so that its drugs can be tested in patients.
Managing director of the Economic Development Board, which drives foreign investment in the biomedical sector here, Dr Beh Swan Gin, expects manufacturing output in the pharmaceutical industry to stay flat or decline this year due to the gloomy economic climate.
But he said R&D investment in the biomedical sciences sector is expected to stay on track.
- wong chee tat :)
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