The restructuring is meant to align A*STAR’s capabilities with Singapore’s research and economic objectives outlined in the Committee on the Future Economy

Singapore Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean announced on Monday that research agency A*STAR is set to be restructured, according to a report by Channel News Asia.

The restructuring is meant to align the agency’s capabilities with Singapore’s research and economic objectives outlined in the Committee on the Future Economy (CFE) report last week.

“The R&D sector creating new economies, new industrial sectors in the economy – this is a very important part of the CFE. And what we’re doing here with NRF (National Research Foundation) and A*STAR is to see how we can take many of the ideas we have in the R&D institutions and take them into industry to create economic value and jobs for Singaporeans,” Deputy Prime Mnister Teo said.

The restructuring effort is currently on planning phase with Minister for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran expected to give further details during the Committee of Supply debates in March.

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A*STAR’s reorganisation will include the four main thrusts laid out in RIE2020: advanced manufacturing, health and biomedical sciences, services and digital economy and urban solutions and sustainability.

“Once you organise by domain, you bring all the relevant stakeholders, you bring all the research performers and importantly, you bring the domain pool, the industry partners, the agencies into the same equation. So whatever you do in upstream research will have a receptacle, a platform for it to be taken to either benefit patients, the economy or the wider Singapore society,” said A*STAR chairman Lim Chuan Poh.

Some of the projects currently undergoing at A*STAR including the screening trial for world’s first publicly-funded cancer drug ETC-159, which development claimed to have been giving “encouraging” results.

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