28 April 2021, 5-6pm

Commercialisation and building strategic alliances between Singapore and UK by Dr Jason Mellad, Start Codon

• From Idea to Reality – how to commercialise your ground-breaking technology via a startup
• Showcase Start Codon companies as case studies for what is possible with our support
• Showcase the circMIR company
• Discuss Start Codon’s strategic alliance with NUS / Kickstarter to spin-out more companies, and the benefits of building stronger bridges between the UK and Singapore (particularly our dual company approach of having a UK entity and a Singaporean entity from day one)
Speakers: Dr Jason Mellad and other representatives from Start Codon; Professor Roger Foo fro YLLSOM; Dr Lave Annadoray from NUS YLLSOM

Please register for the webinar here:

https://nus-sg.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_rQyDH_AwQq6OmkSRTi3XXQ 

The journey of founding biotech startups
Speaker: Ho Wen Qi, Vice-President, Lightstone Ventures

About the speaker
Wen Qi is a Vice-President at Lightstone Ventures and she focuses on investing in and building life sciences companies out of the Singapore office. Since joining Lightstone Ventures in 2015, she has played a major role in the firm’s investments in Medisix Therapeutics, Foundry Therapeutics 1, Foundry Therapeutics 2, Gemini Therapeutics and Ligature Therapeutics.

Prior to joining Lightstone Ventures, Wen Qi worked at the Singapore Immunology Network, where her research was focused on the immunological basis of allergic diseases. She remains active in advocating for early career researcher participation in biotech entrepreneurship and was a founding member of Biotech Connection Singapore and served in its executive committee. Wen Qi received her B.Sc. in Molecular and Cellular Biology at Johns Hopkins University and her Ph.D. in Immunology at Stanford University. She was also the recipient of the National Science Scholarship from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research Singapore.

About the speaker
Wai Chiew has over 20 years of experience in global investment management and strategic business development, having been active in leading various companies on transformational growth strategies, fund raising and M&A. In his previous roles at Temasek and other funds, he has led and managed investments across multiple industries and geographies. Given his passion in building disruptive new ventures, he thoroughly enjoyed commercializing biomedical and engineering deep tech ventures from Singapore’s public research institutes while at A*STAR, and also co-founded an advanced technology accelerator supported by the Singapore government. Wai Chiew also actively serves as a director on multiple boards and as an advisor on various investment advisory committees to advocate sustainable growth and sound governance.

About the speaker
Piers completed his PhD in Systems Biology at Imperial College London, funded by the Wellcome Trust and subsequently held several roles in academia, including a research group leader at Imperial College, before moving to work in biopharma R&D consulting and then commercial strategy at Sanofi. Seeing the exciting progress in systems biology and immunology over the last decade, Piers co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience in 2014 in order to apply these advances to drug discovery and development. Piers also holds an MBA from INSEAD and is an adjunct Principal Investigator at the Institute for Molecular and Cell Biology (IMCB).

About the speaker
Dr Yau Teng Yan (MBBS, M.Med, FRCR) is Chief of Digital Therapeutics at Holmusk, a healthcare and data company that is building the world’s largest real-world evidence platform for mental health and chronic diseases. Dr Yau is a practicing medical doctor with 10+ years of professional experience, including at several public hospitals in Singapore (TTSH, SGH, NCCS). He trained in diagnostic radiology and is a fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists (London). He was also involved in health policy decisions in the Singapore Armed Forces. He is a big believer that technology and AI will transform the delivery of healthcare, to achieve better outcomes, reduced costs and improved patient experience.

About the speaker
Verleen Goh is the co-founder and Chief Food Fighter of Alchemy Foodtech. With the belief that food is the new medicine, she is on a quest to use food science and technology to create new functional foods and ingredients to combat chronic diseases. Currently, she is set on solving the diabetes problem in Asia, starting with our love for carbs. Alchemy Foodtech patented ingredient, Alchemy Fibre™, is a 100% plant-based ingredient scientifically tested to lower glucose release of carbohydrate foods, and provides beneficial prebiotic fibres which aids gut health and immunity, while maintaining the great taste of food. Verleen graduated with an honours degree in Food Science and Technology from National University of Singapore.

Moderator
Dr Koh Fong Ming is Head of Life Sciences at Heritas Capital, where he evaluates investments into life science and healthcare companies at all stages, with portfolio companies spanning across biotech, healthtech, foodtech and more. A mouse developmental biologist by training, he has extensive research experience spanning pluripotent stem cells, epigenetics and cancer. Prior to joining Heritas, Fong was Vice President of Biotech Connection Singapore, where he led multiple initiatives to promote entrepreneurship in the local life sciences ecosystem. Fong received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Francisco with support from the A*STAR National Science Scholarship.