Singaporean Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences IT Market

Summary

Singapore's Burgeoning Biomedical Science Sector Fuels Growth in the Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences IT Market

Bolstered by a vibrant biomedical manufacturing sector, Singapore's pharmaceutical and life sciences sector is in its growth phase and steadily moving towards maturity. Singapore has emerged as a technological and manufacturing hotspot with top pharmaceutical and life sciences companies operating on its shores. The fast pace of development of the biomedical science industry has boosted the country's manufacturing output, enabling its positioning as the biomedical hub of Asia. "Opportunities to provide integration services or mid-market enterprise and production systems abound in niche areas," notes the analyst of this research service. "Software-as-a-service (SaaS) based customer resource management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP) and software configuring management (SCM) applications are anticipated to see higher uptake among MNC pharmaceutical and life sciences companies as they apply an incremental approach to upgrade their client server technology tools in sales and marketing."

Small and medium businesses (SMBs) in Singapore are expected to step up spending and allocate a large proportion of their resources for networking, storage, and security. ERP and e-businesses are gaining traction in this sector as smaller enterprises strive hard to optimize productivity, and reduce workforces by automating essential function. Multinational and large local pharmaceutical companies are the forerunners in IT adoption. Evidence points to a movement toward early adoption of well integrated enterprise applications with readiness for data mining tools for information extraction. There is a distinct preference for incremental IT solutions, which can be easily interfaced with existing systems to provide data analysis techniques. IT firms are patronizing IT systems more than their life science counterparts as they are larger and have more spending power.

Streamlined Regulatory Practices and Prolific R&D Activities Steer the Market Forward

"Scientists and large pharmaceutical firms need a strong level of confidence that their inventions will be protected before the volume of research activities grow in Singapore," says the analyst. "The new Health Products Act 2007 should improve regulatory practice for both medical devices and pharmaceuticals." Amendments to the Medicines Act have been made to provide greater protection for pharmaceuticals patents. The prominent sectors engaged in research currently are the government and universities. Funds are apportioned for the promotion of spin-off activities and the commercialization of indigenously developed new technologies. As the competition heats up among research labs to commercialize their new inventions, the pressure builds up on product lead times. In such a scenario, strong support in computing will provide the critical competitive edge. Developing improved operational and managerial processes and the use of advanced technology would greatly help compress R&D time.

IT adoption encompasses process changes at every stage of the pharmaceutical value chain. Noticeably, there is a lack of qualified personnel to expedite the process of integration and the usage of IT applications. This is perceived as a stumbling block for this sector. In a market fast approaching maturity, it is imperative to have an understanding of the industry's investment characteristics. Ease of obtaining funds by the private sector or start-ups to augment research initiatives helps hasten IT adoption in Singapore. Solution vendors must be alert to the specific demands of end users to make significant headway in this highly lucrative space.

Technologies

The following technologies are covered in this research:

• Enterprise resource planning
• Customer relationship management
• Supply chain management

Contents

• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. Research Overview
• 3. Total Market Analysis
  • 3.1 Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences IT Market Overview
  • 3. 2 Market Size of Pharmaceuticals and Life Sciences IT
  • 3. 3 Drivers for IT Adoption
  • 3. 4 Restraints for IT Adoption
• 4. End-user Analysis
  • 4. 1 Market Segmentation and Revenues
  • 4. 2 Revenue Analysis by Solution Component - Pharmaceutical Firms
  • 4. 3 Areas of Opportunities - Pharmaceutical Firms
  • 4. 4 Revenue Analysis by Solution Component - Life Sciences Firms
  • 4. 5 Areas of Opportunities - Life Sciences Firms
• 5. Competitive Landscape
  • 5. 1 Key Participants in respective IT domains
• 6. Decision Support Databases