Singapore's push to become a powerhouse in the bio industry has moved beyond simply "building a base" and into a phase where it is revealing the substance of global new drug development. The national strategy that ties intellectual property to finance has become a foundation that supports long-term competitiveness beyond short-term support. The results are taking concrete shape in the growth trajectory of the biotech corporations Hummingbird Bioscience.
Hummingbird's beginnings were not glamorous. In 2015, all it had was a small office above a chicken rice restaurant in downtown Singapore. Research was conducted by borrowing a lab at the National Cancer Center. Early subsidies from the Small and Medium Enterprise Administration (Enterprise Singapore) primed its proof-of-concept (PoC) research.
It took 11 years to grow into a global new drug developer conducting clinical trials of next-generation Antibody-Drug Conjugate (ADC) therapies in the United States. On the 6th (local time), Hummingbird began first-patient dosing in a phase 1 trial in the United States of "HMBD-501," an ADC targeting HER3 (human epidermal growth factor receptor 3).
It is also developing monoclonal antibodies (mAb) targeting cancer and autoimmune diseases. "HMBD-001," which is in clinical trials in Singapore, Korea, Taiwan, Australia and the United Kingdom, is a representative case. Last year, it also proved its technology by exporting "HMBD-002," a monoclonal antibody targeting the immune checkpoint factor VISTA, to Percheron Therapeutics in Australia.
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Singapore, which has invested in life sciences since the 1980s, has in the past decade focused public research funding on fields with high commercialization potential through the Research, Innovation and Enterprise (RIE) plan. As a result, bio industry employment and startups have grown rapidly.
Piers Ingram, chief executive officer (CEO) of Hummingbird Bioscience, said in a recent written interview with ChosunBiz, "The intellectual property protection framework and legal and institutional environment, access to capital, talent pool, and strategic location were why we chose Singapore."
Hummingbird's decision to make Singapore its research base was also influenced by a national strategy that linked intellectual property to fundraising and business expansion through consolidation. After formulating the "IP Hub Master Plan" in 2013 and revising it, the Singapore government elevated technology commercialization and financial linkages as a core pillar of its economic strategy.
Under this framework, Singaporean corporations came to have a structure that ties intangible assets like patents to equity investment, loans and government subsidies. The government also piloted patent-collateral loans through the IP Financing Scheme (IPFS), and more recently announced the Singapore IP Strategy 2030 (SIPS 2030), declaring a leap to a global hub.
International cooperation has also supported this. In 2010, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) established an Arbitration and Mediation Center in Singapore. It was the first office outside Geneva.
On this institutional foundation, Hummingbird was selected last year as one of 10 small and mid-sized corporations worldwide in WIPO's Global Awards. CEO Ingram said, "We are thoroughly protecting clinical data and core technologies secured in each country," adding, "If innovation creates value, intellectual property is the mechanism that sustains that value."
◇Beyond cancer to immune diseases…Hummingbird bets on ADCs
Hummingbird has set a strategy to extend ADC technology to immune and inflammatory diseases. The idea is to overcome the safety limits of steroids and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which are inevitably administered long term, with precision targeted therapies.
CEO Ingram said, "As the number of autoimmune disease patients is increasing worldwide, there is significant potential for therapies with differentiated safety to emerge in the ADC field."
The company aims to fill about one-third of its entire pipeline with ADCs for immune and inflammatory diseases within the next five years. Currently, the only ADC under direct development by the headquarters is HMBD-501. Three additional candidates have been out-licensed to its U.S. subsidiary, Callio Therapeutics.
CEO Ingram said, "We are conducting preclinical programs targeting various immune and inflammatory diseases," adding, "We cannot disclose the targets, but we are pursuing differentiation by combining our capabilities in candidate discovery and drug design."
He said, "In the short term, we are focused on advancing clinical trials for key pipeline assets and bringing immune-disease ADCs into the clinical stage," adding, "In the long term, we are keeping various options open, including an initial public offering (IPO) and strategic alliances with global pharmaceutical corporations."
To date, Hummingbird has raised a total of $150 million (about 216 billion won) through six funding rounds. A representative example is the $125 million (about 180 billion won) series C in 2021 led by Novo Holdings. In the series B round, Korean investors including Mirae Asset Capital also participated, and SK invested about 8 billion won in the series B extension.