Interview with Local Partner - Mohamed ElSayed, Executive Director, Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Initiative (NATi)

NATi is Singapore’s national initiative to establish RNA vaccines and therapeutics as an innovation and economic pillar of the country’s BioPharma sector. In the initial phase of 2 to 3 years, we are establishing discovery, preclinical development, and translational capabilities and the talent necessary for RNA drug development. In the next phase of 3 to 5 years, we will build upon this robust foundation to mature and commercialise a pipeline of RNA drug assets and associated platform technologies, through global collaborations, spin-offs, licensing, and other avenues.

With a firm belief that innovation is not limited to a specific zip code, NATi aims to leverage the unique opportunities in the APAC region to create medicines that address unmet medical needs in both established and emerging markets. NATi also aims to synergize with the robust manufacturing and supply chain capabilities established in Singapore to enhance economic growth across the ecosystem

The evolution of NATi’s strategy positions us to function like a biotech firm with a corporate venture arm, albeit embedded in the public sector. Through this organization,NATi has more than 20 portfolio and pipeline projects spanning smarter drug design, targeted delivery systems, and drug asset development. We have installed foundational capacities using semi-automated processes to accelerate the local production of preclinical RNA drug substances and products, with the support of international partners such as Wellcome Leap.

Further, NATi is fortifying ourselves as a translation engine by building dedicated laboratories for RNA drug development. This evolution of our operating model allows earlier-stage innovations to be integrated, matured, and derisked to yield clinical drug candidates as well as investible technology stacks. We believe this is critical to attract private investments for downstream commercialisation and clinical translation.

This year marks 25 years of Singapore’s investment into the biomedical sector. We are fortunate to have a strong talent base to enable innovation as an economic driver for Singapore. Advanced genetics has become bread and butter for biomedical researchers in Singapore, especially Illumina, the Genome Institute of Singapore, Duke-NUS Medical School, just to name a few. During the Covid-19 pandemic, this very foundation allowed Singapore to quickly embrace the mRNA vaccine technology and tide over the global crisis.

It is noteworthy that Singapore has been a commercially viable hub for biopharmaceuticals, strengthened by robust frameworks to protect intellectual property. Today, 4 of the top 5 pharmaceutical companies by global revenue have manufacturing facilities in Singapore. Almost S$38 billion worth of biomedical products were manufactured in Singapore for the global market in 2023. We would like to imagine commensurate outcomes for the RNA space.

As a publicly funded national initiative, NATi collaborates with local researchers by funding promising ideas that realistically address unmet needs. We continuously engage the industry to understand new needs and identify viable avenues to graduate drug assets and platform technologies from the public sector to the private sector. This includes frequent consultations with venture investors to develop spin-off opportunities where timely and strategic.