Early-stage funding opportunities in Singapore: An interview with Guy Heathers Albatroz Therapeutics, and Ritika Khetawat, MissionBridge
By: Mei Chee Lim, Johannes Püllen and Philippe Koch
The first step is the hardest: In the dynamic world of biotechnology, the journey from innovative ideas to tangible impact begins with securing early-stage funding. Biotech startups in Singapore, fueled by world-class pioneering research and entrepreneurial spirit, face a unique set of opportunities and challenges as they aim to secure early-stage investment from local investors.
We spoke to Guy Heathers, a serial founder and “veteran” of the Singaporean biotech community, and Ritika Khetawat, a trusted partner of Singapore-based startups for early-stage funding, to learn more about their respective journeys and views on the current state of the Singapore early-stage biotech community. Guy and Ritika shed light on the opportunities and challenges encountered by founders seeking early-stage funding in Singapore, and provide funding-related insights that can help turn the visionary concepts of Singapore’s biotech founders into reality.
ZS: Ritika and Guy, could you please share some insights into your backgrounds and current roles?
Ritika: I have over 13 years of experience in fundraising across large banks and growth-stage startups. My investment banking days at Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley equipped me with the skills to manage large-scale equity and debt raises. However, it was my time at Tessa Therapeutics that immersed me in biotech fundraising. For over six years I facilitated three fundraise transactions from healthcare investors in Asia-Pacific (APAC) and the United States. This experience shed light on the unique funding considerations and challenges for biotech startups in Singapore. Recognizing the minimal support available to early-stage founders when it comes to fundraising, I founded MissionBridge. My passion is to provide comprehensive support to founders navigating this challenging journey and enable better fund flows to the Singapore biopharmaceutical space in the long run.
ZS: Guy, how about you? Can you tell us about your background and current role? We understand that you have been involved in the Singapore biotech ecosystem for over two decades now.
Guy: After completing my Ph.D. in cardiovascular disease and a post-doc in the U.S., I transitioned from drug discovery at Roche in New Jersey to technology transfer at Cancer Research Technology in London, where I played a key role in forming companies and collaborating globally. In 2000, I co-founded “Biotech Research Ventures” in Singapore to foster biotech spin-off companies, collaborating with the likes of the National Cancer Centre, Cancer Research Technology and Temasek. Over 24 years, I navigated challenges in Singapore’s biotech sector, later leading a consortium in Australia to develop cancer drugs and partnering with companies like Merck and Pfizer. Eventually returning to Singapore, I supported initiatives at the National Cancer Centre and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star), consulting for their intellectual property (IP) offices and collaborating with startups like Tessa Therapeutics, Enleofen Biosciences and Hummingbird Bioscience. Despite setbacks, I’m optimistic and launching two new biotech startups, Twain Therapeutics and Albatroz Therapeutics, focused on pioneering cancer treatments.
ZS: That’s an impressive journey Guy! Since you had the opportunity to be part of our community for over two decades, how would you describe the changes you have seen?
Guy: Over the past two decades, the local biotech industry has experienced remarkable momentum, witnessing a surge in experienced professionals adept in commercial development. Despite Singapore’s world-class universities, research, talent and ideas, the biotech landscape still lags behind the robust ecosystems of leading regions like the UK, Europe and the U.S. While there have been notable improvements in private investment and drug development capabilities, substantial enhancements are still needed in these domains.
ZS: Interesting — we’ll touch on what’s needed to increase the number of successful biotech startups coming out of Singapore later. Ritika, working closely with founders from our community, what’s your perspective on the evolving Singaporean biotech startup landscape?
Ritika: Indeed, the biotech community in Singapore has undergone significant growth in the past few decades. What’s most remarkable is the robust support available to turn early-stage innovations into ventures. In Singapore, academic labs coupled with various incubators and accelerators, play pivotal roles in nurturing early-stage scientific innovations. Founders emerging from Singapore academia benefit from a plethora of grant opportunities, complemented by grants accessible to locally incorporated biotech firms through Enterprise Singapore. We see a focus on specialized therapeutics such as cell and gene therapy (CGT), nucleic acids and precision diagnostics. However, as biotech companies become more mature things start to become challenging. Venture capital funding primarily targets seed and Series A stages, with round sizes typically ranging from $5 to $20 million. For late-stage funding, biotechs often need backing from global venture capitalists to propel them toward late-stage clinical development and commercialization.
Having said that, we have seen some impressive success stories in the past and more recently — such as Enleofen Bio’s acquisition by Boehringer Ingelheim, or Hummingbird’s successful license agreement with Endeavor Bio, and I remain hopeful of many more to come as global biopharma emerges from the ‘Biotech winter’.
ZS: When discussing early-stage funding opportunities with founders, what are the key challenges that founders seek help to address?
Ritika: For founders, securing funding is undoubtedly a top priority that often keeps them awake at night. They’re particularly keen on learning how to craft a compelling pitch and pinpoint suitable investors within Singapore’s ecosystem.
What distinguishes Singapore is its tightly-knit community and concentrated funding sources. Here, networking and reputation hold even greater significance compared to other markets.
Singapore has the potential to offer the best of both worlds: The scientific excellence of its world-class universities combined with the strategic proximity to China and India, enables potential operational efficiencies and rapid scalability. How to integrate both is something some founders ponder about.
When it comes to pitching, the fundamentals remain consistent across markets. My clients are eager to understand how to captivate an investor’s interest within the crucial first few minutes, develop a compelling value proposition — ‘why us’ — and effectively articulate a clear target market positioning.
ZS: Guy, what’s your perspective as the founder of multiple Singapore-based biotech companies?
Guy: My primary challenges stem from the lack of confidence in companies based in Singapore by the local establishment. While we possess inventions and technologies that are on par with global standards, what we truly lack is the confidence and willingness to take risks that are prevalent in other regions.
There’s a shortage of significant risk-oriented investments in Singapore’s biotech sector and regrettably, the preferences of many private investors in Singapore are short-term gains. I often wish we had more investors who are willing to take on more risk to support the fantastic assets and technologies that Singaporean companies are developing. I’d like to see more ‘smart’ investors with significant biotech experience partnering with our local investors to improve our understanding of the business of biotech and create more success stories.
Ritika: To build on what Guy said: Several current Singaporean early-stage biotechs operate in novel therapeutic modalities, such as CGT, where there’s limited regulatory precedent, and uncertainties around timelines and budgets, which only increases the potential lack of confidence from local investors who may not necessarily be biotech specialists.
This makes it crucial for biotechs in Singapore to ensure visibility with investors from the U.S. and Europe early on through participation in investor conferences and to establish credibility and expand funding opportunities, especially for large funding rounds.
ZS: Given the concerns about local investor confidence, how can founders effectively navigate this challenge?
Ritika: For biotechs, ‘data’ speaks louder than words. While many early-stage ventures will not be able to produce clinical-stage data at the moment, they should still prioritize the accumulation of robust in-vivo data as a key strategy to foster investor trust.
This is closely connected with a need to focus on talent, as building a successful company is a team sport. Investors are often very interested in the key scientific personnel and founders need to ensure they have the people with the right skills and expertise. Furthermore, local investors need to see that founders can keep operations lean with a clear development focus.
Finally, I would say that biotechs with a strong U.S. or China angle or robust pharma collaborations may tend to distinguish themselves favorably in the eyes of investors.
Guy: I agree with Ritika’s points and would add that in Singapore defining a clear business strategy early on is even more crucial than in other markets, as it forms the foundation for all operations and decisions. It’s essential to understand how to create tangible value with the capital at hand and prove to investors that founders know how to efficiently utilize their capital.
Additionally, mastering the skill of effectively ‘selling’ one’s company, technology or product is crucial for entrepreneurs in Singapore to attract investors, customers and strategic partners, driving growth and success in a competitive market where technical expertise alone may not suffice.
ZS: Once sufficient funds to get started have been secured, what comes next? How can a Singapore-based biotech start-up secure the next funding route?
Ritika: Hitting the right clinical and regulatory milestones is crucial for biotechs to secure late-stage funding. With that in place what becomes key is engaging global healthcare specialist funds to lead these rounds. Now these relationships are not built overnight and require focused ongoing engagement and visibility via various channels.
While more and more global investors are starting to focus on Singapore, a lot more work is needed to bridge this gap and it’s an area I actively work with founders on.
Guy: I fully agree with Ritika. To me, the biggest risk in later funding rounds is being too focused on Singapore and not spending enough time meeting and presenting to European, U.S. and Asian biotech and pharmaceutical companies and investors. While these companies tend to ask a lot of questions — given their lack of familiarity with Singaporean companies — I believe it makes local biotechs work harder to obtain the answers and become even more competitive in the global industry.
ZS: Maybe one last question: If you could make a wish to change one thing about the Singaporean biotech ecosystem, what would that be?
Guy: That’s a tough one. I don’t believe ‘one thing’ will magically propel the local ecosystem into the top tier worldwide, so I’m going to cheat and give you a few thoughts where you can take your pick. Ideally, I’d wish for streamlined support for local scientists, reducing administrative burdens and boosting research productivity. We also need to revitalize international talent recruitment and enhance tech transfer office understanding regarding the needs of the biotech industry. Prioritizing the recruitment of business and product development experts to collaborate with scientists is also crucial. Lastly, attracting seasoned biotech investors to work alongside local ones would also help foster continuous growth and innovation as success breeds success and any financial gains can be re-invested into the local community.
Ritika: That covers it all. My wish is that everything Guy wished for comes true!
ZS: Thank you for your time and for sharing your insights with us!
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Our ZS@SG_EmergingPharma team can support you with fundraising preparation, product target or asset identification and valuation and business strategy — including buy versus build, portfolio, pipeline and launch. Please feel free to reach out to learn more: johannes.puellen@zs.com or meichee.lim@zs.com.
About the authors
Mei Chee Lim, Ph.D.: Based in Singapore, Mei Chee supports her clients with go-to-market strategies, market landscape assessments, and launch planning. Before to joining ZS, Mei Chee completed her Ph.D. in oncology at Duke-NUS Medical School.
Philippe Koch: Based in Berlin, Philippe supports his clients on multiple topics including strategy and transformation, and performance management. Before joining to ZS, Philippe was actively involved in the startup ecosystem of the Netherlands.
Johannes Püllen: Based in Singapore, Johannes supports his clients in APAC and Europe across multiple topics, such as access and pricing strategy, product launch excellence and go-to-market strategy, in multiple therapeutic areas, including rare diseases, neurodegenerative diseases, oncology and vaccines.
