Show Notes 202: British Chambers of Commerce @ Cambridge Wide Open Week

Breaking Into Asia: How UK Life Sciences Companies Are Finding Their Next Growth Market

The latest episode of the Cambridge Tech Podcast features a fascinating panel discussion on international trade recorded live at Cambridge Wide Open Week.

The UK Export Challenge

Stephen Lynch, Director of International Trade at the British Chambers of Commerce, opens with a sobering statistic: whilst only 10% of British businesses export, the BCC's network achieves a remarkable 45%. This disparity represents a significant untapped opportunity. As Lynch points out, "If we increased UK exports by 2%, we could improve UK GDP by 0.6%."

The problem isn't a lack of innovation or ambition; it's a delivery gap. UK founders and scientists often lack the business expertise and market clarity needed to confidently enter international markets. This is where the new trade accelerator comes in.

A Revolutionary Approach to Market Entry

Rather than offering generic webinars about exporting, the BCC has created something fundamentally different: an end-to-end, process-driven accelerator specifically targeting life sciences companies interested in Singapore [04:03].

Key features include:

• A curated cohort of 10 high-growth, export-ready companies selected from 150 applicants

• Weekly detailed modules covering Singapore's regulatory landscape and healthcare sectors

• Direct connections to Singapore government bodies, the Health Sciences Authority, and the Singapore Clinical Research Institute

• One-to-one advisory sessions with regulatory experts and market specialists

• Financial and export financing support from NatWest

Lynch emphasises the critical difference in their approach: "We are not interested in how many businesses met other businesses... We're focused on how many deals were created."

Why Singapore?

Singapore might not be the obvious first choice for UK startups—the US typically dominates—but it's positioned as a strategic gateway to Southeast Asia. With a population of 6 million, Singapore punches well above its weight as a hub for healthcare innovation and life sciences.

Jay Sadanandan, a Singapore life sciences expert, highlights the market's unique advantages:

• The Health Sciences Authority recently launched a close collaboration with the UK's MHRA, enabling regulatory expediency for innovative technologies

• Access to world-class clinical research infrastructure and patient populations

• Singapore's ambitious government vision to solve prevention through treatment across healthcare

The Cohort Advantage

The 10 selected companies span pre-seed to Series C stages and focus on areas where UK strength aligns with Singapore opportunity: genomics, molecular diagnostics, advanced therapeutics, and enabling technologies like biologic stabilisation.

Importantly, companies aren't required to relocate or abandon UK operations. Instead, they use Singapore as a commercial testbed, a lower-risk environment to validate their business model before scaling across Asia Pacific, the US, or beyond.

What's Next?

The pilot launches in September 2026, but the ambitions extend far beyond Singapore. Lynch reveals plans to scale to Hong Kong, the Gulf, and other strategic markets. The ultimate goal? Moving from 15 businesses entering one market annually to 15 businesses entering different markets each month.

For UK startup founders and investors watching the export opportunity, this episode offers genuine insight into how the next generation of British life sciences companies might achieve global scale, and why Singapore might be the launchpad you haven't considered yet.

Listen to the full episode on the Cambridge Tech Podcast to hear the complete discussion, including audience Q&A and practical advice for companies considering international expansion.

AI Transcript

00:00

Speaker 1

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00:58

James Parton

Welcome to Cambridge Tech Podcast. This week we have the first of our new long form interview episodes to complement the Friday Tech News episodes as we mentioned on Friday. Please do let us know what you think of the new two episodes per week format as we experiment to keep the show fresh and add video content to the mix. Today's episode is a live recording of the International Trade panel at the recent Cambridge Wide Open Week. The panel was chaired by Stephen Lynch, who is the Director of International Trade at the British Chambers of Commerce. And it's a fascinating conversation which sheds light on the work of the Chambers of Commerce around support for UK businesses entering new markets. And the conversation has a specific focus on Singapore.

01:46

Steven Lynch

Good afternoon everybody. I think we're in the room with the noisiest chairs, so that's good. So my name is Stephen Lynch, I'm the Director of International Trade at the British Chambers of Commerce and I'd just like to introduce my colleague as well, Jay.

01:59

Jayashree Sadanandan

Nice to meet all of you.

02:00

Steven Lynch

We work together, so we're really happy to this to be a kind of an open, robust kind of conversation. What we'd really want to do is talk about what we think is not revolutionary for what it is, but it's revolutionary for our network around a trade accelerator just to give a tiny little bit of basis to who we are and what we're trying to do. So we're the British Chambers of Commerce. We have 51 chambers here in the UK and 75 chambers internationally. That represents roughly around 100,000 businesses, but it touches upon hundreds of thousands of businesses. One thing to mention that the UK does have a slight growth challenge at the moment. I think we're all aware of it is reported that there's about 10% of British businesses export. It's about 6% of SMEs exports.

02:45

Steven Lynch

But at the British Chamber network, 45% of our businesses export. So essentially we actually have a high growth, high opportunity sector. If we increased UK exports by 2%, we could improve UK GDP by 0.6%. That is essentially the UK's growth crisis. So what we're really focused on here at the British Chambers of Commerce is to get businesses exporting. Sounds quite simplistic. I've spoken to a couple of the businesses downstairs. The UK does not lack innovation, it does not lack ambition, it does not lack incredible leaders. What it does lack is a delivery gap and that's what we're seeing more and more of. We actually want businesses to export, but there's a real lack of understanding, lack of clarity. Who do you speak to? Where do you go to? So that is essentially why we're creating an end to end model.

03:33

Steven Lynch

We have the businesses, we have the interest, but we also have the network to essentially hold your hand, remove all the guesswork to get into a market. So everywhere from I'm interested in Singapore, right the way to actually who are the buyers, who are the distributors, who are the players in the market. The big difference I would say from this to any other accelerator or incubator is the fact that it's a process. So this is not just about a delegation, this is not just about a trip into Singapore that's speculative. This is about the process that we've created. So yes, it says Life Sciences and yes, it says Singapore, but this is actually a business accelerator model where we then plug and play in the Life Sciences and the Singapore element.

04:13

Steven Lynch

The other aspect of that is that we're incredible position to actually align all the politics, which is quite unique. And especially in a market where you are in Singapore, you do need to align politics. So we have the Department of Business and Trade, the Foreign Office, UK Science and Technology, UK Export. But from the other side of it, we also have the Singaporean government throwing their weight behind this as well. So we've created this end to end model. Essentially, it's everything a business needs to know to get into the market. So how do you raise capital? Fx, IP protection? What does the market actually look like? How do you pitch? Because a big part of this as well is a lot of businesses are founders and scientists, they're not business people. And that's absolutely fine.

04:53

Steven Lynch

But what we're doing through this process is actually just giving them everything they need to do to feel confident to get on a plane and do deals. The other bit about that, which is completely unique is you're not doing it yourself. We're not giving the businesses a webinar that says Singapore is great, good luck. What we're actually doing is connecting you with the right distributors. The right buyers, the Ministry of Health. And again, that is the difference from this. So from a British Chamber perspective, we are not interested in how many businesses met other businesses or how great their trip was, or what it looked like on LinkedIn is actually how many deals were created. That is fundamentally where we need to get to as a network.

05:29

Steven Lynch

So we've got 10 businesses on the cohort and they are high growth, high opportunity businesses which were selected. So it wasn't just a process where you can apply and you're on it. We wanted to make sure we've got the right businesses that are export ready, growth ready, but also mindset ready to actually go international. So every business has joined the cohort. Our metrics of success is are they successful? That is it, plain and simple. We don't make money from them. The idea is we literally want them to do deals and grow in the Singapore market. Why Singapore? So Singapore is a country of 6 million people. So it's not just purely the size, it's the opportunity of Singapore as that hub and spoke for the entirety of the region. So Singapore, 6 million people.

06:11

Steven Lynch

But again, if you get the regular environment right, which they have in Singapore, it's a springboard into Southeast Asia, into the Philippines, into Malaysia, where healthcare technology and Life Sciences is going to become absolutely fundamental for the next sort of 20 to 30 years. And again, we are at the forefront of that in regards to UK innovation and UK technology. The other bit which I find incredible around Singapore is they have an incredibly ambitious government that has essentially said, we want to solve prevention right the way through to treatment. I don't know any other country that is doing it. And thinking about that in the same way that Singapore is. So again, the opportunity for UK businesses to go into market, to be regulated and then have that springboard into other markets is just phenomenal. So where are we?

06:58

Steven Lynch

So we've got our cohort at the moment, they're going through the process. We were going into Singapore in September, in 2026. But the idea is this is a pilot that can absolutely be scaled, can be replicated both into Singapore and then into other markets. So looking at Hong Kong, looking at the Gulf, again, this is the big opportunity. Now, 15 businesses into Singapore is not going to shift the dial in GDP, but 15 businesses a month into different markets really could. And that's absolutely what we're trying to do in regards to scale this network. Now, many of you again might not have heard of the British Chamber of Commerce, and that's absolutely fine. What we're trying to do is make sure that every single business in the UK can grow and can scale. That is our foundational mission. Life Sciences is an incredible ecosystem.

07:45

Steven Lynch

We are not trying to replicate that. What we are trying to do is amplify that. Jay was telling me earlier that there's 700 trade accelerators here in the UK and I imagine different pathways, different people. We want to act as a platform to amplify and support businesses. We have to get our businesses growing, we have to get our businesses going international. And again, if I talk about the biggest opportunity and the quickest route to growth right now, it is through exports. So the most well trodden path, especially in this sector, is to the us. Singapore is a massive opportunity market that's probably not well known, but the opportunity is genuinely enormous. Yes for Singapore, but also for the wider region.

08:24

Steven Lynch

I wanted to talk a little bit about the why we're doing it, what we're doing, and then Jay, who's a Singapore Life science expert, is going to take us to exactly what the ecosystem looks like in Singapore, what is the opportunity and who are the businesses that we're taking through on this accelerator.

08:38

Jayashree Sadanandan

Thanks everyone. So, just to add some of the points from what Steve said was that this is actually a pilot, which is amazing that BCC has taken up. I was here at the previous presentations and of the some of the feedback we are getting is that while they are able to do some of the work here, the commercial component is more missing for many of the companies. And the companies need to actually look at adoption. You need to go and find commercial customers and then you need to keep improving your product if you want to scale and if you want to sell. So many of them do look at the us, but it's also quite complicated. So where can be a safe location?

09:20

Jayashree Sadanandan

And I think we've been very fortunate that BCC actually, this is not their traditional space, but BCC has had feedback from a lot of companies that they've encountered to say, actually we do want to scale, we do want to internationalize, we want to build a base in the UK, but we do want to bring it out. And maybe the US is a bit too challenging for us and where can we look at as another location? And this is where, because of how BCC Network is across the world, the Singapore Chamber of Commerce has really stood out for us because they have very deep roots with the Singapore government and that's how we have started to do this. But we didn't do this on our own.

10:02

Jayashree Sadanandan

We Were very fortunate because we actually connected up with a number of accelerator programs that were already running in the UK. So for example, Jenny Hurst, who presented earlier on Brahms, with Cambridge, with Oxford, Enterprises with Imperial, with Manchester, Newcastle. So through the chambers network we reached out to as many accelerators that we could and to try to see who would be interested to actually explore Singapore in a serious way. And that's how that was one of our criteria in selecting even the company. So we had then very good response from the different companies out there at different stages of growth and then went through a selection process in terms of how committed they are, how ready are they to scale, how much have they already done any clinical trials, have they had any adoption success, have they got any contracts?

10:56

Jayashree Sadanandan

What is their value proposition? Have they looked at the competitors in Singapore? What are you really looking for? Is it a research collaboration or are you ready to offer services? So based on all of those we wanted to make, well, this is a pilot to see how successful we could be. So we also then tried to look at what are the strengths in the UK that would also make sense in Singapore. The main point was that where UK strength is, that speaks very much to Singapore is really in the Life science tooling capabilities. So in areas like genomics, molecular diagnostic, analytical technologies, research instrumentation, consumables and specialty services, which is already growing in the UK and what you have all over the country was really a key strength that spoke out to Singapore.

11:51

Jayashree Sadanandan

Research tools, cells and disease models, image imaging enabled discovery platforms and they fit with Singapore. The next area which is massive in Singapore because it's looking at prevention is on genetic testing. Singapore has been working with illumina to get 100,000 cohort to look at what is the Asian genomics to look into precision medicine. So that was also another strength that the UK has. You have Oxford Nanopore here in Illumina has also has a lot of roots in the UK. So that was another area. And then the third area that Singapore is looking at, this is where companies like AstraZeneca play a big role is on an advanced bio attack and the new modalities that are out there, right, Particularly oncology and immunology.

12:37

Jayashree Sadanandan

So Singapore, just like many of the other developed countries, actually one of the highest disease burdens is oncology, like overrepresentation in the number of cases with cancer compared to other chronic other diseases. Right. And then Singapore is also look at cell and gene therapy in a big way. So based on that, actually were quite fortunate that these were actually the 10 companies. I'm not able to name the 10 companies, but these were the companies that were able to. These were the strengths that the companies had. They were in the areas of being able to offer early detection. And the companies that stood out for us were those in molecular diagnostics, genomics, cancer detection, microbiome, precision health. We have only 10 companies, so most of them are overlapped, but they fit in this.

13:29

Jayashree Sadanandan

The other ones were companies that were looking at advanced new therapies, for example photodynamic therapy for oral cancers and so on. So oncology therapeutics, non antibiotics therapeutics. Given the prevention way that Singapore is looking at synthetic DNA, nucleic acid platforms, translational biotech, so were fortunate to find companies actually in these categories as well. And then there were actually quite a bigger group of companies in enabling translation, cell models, imaging, particle science formulation, analytical services, biologic stabilization and supply chain resilience. So we have had these 10 companies fairly established in the sense that they are quite clear on what their product offering is, where they are in the stage of development. Some of them are at the end where they are able to already offer a service, especially on the analytical services.

14:28

Jayashree Sadanandan

But some of them are actually there to do their phase 1 and phase 2a clinical trials where they are then going to leverage on some of the grants that are offered by like a star Singapore's research institutes like ASTAR or working together with the Singapore Clinical Research Institute and so on. So that's how what BCC has done because we are not, we are quite a unique kind of trade accelerator, we took in a diverse cohort to try to show the spectrum of companies that we could bring across and where they could benefit from it. Right. So what the Singapore Institute ecosystem was able to offer was in terms of advice on your regulatory strategy.

15:15

Jayashree Sadanandan

So we work very closely with the Health Sciences Authority and in case you're not aware, the Health Sciences Authority actually launched a close collaboration with UK's MHRA in December last year. Where your regulatory approvals, it's not an automatic approval waiver, but they will work together on new innovative technologies, on how they can get regulatory expediency and approvals which can be used at the global level. Right. In terms of our collaboration, if you're wondering how it works, these companies actually have a chance to have a one to one and no cost conversation with the Health Sciences Authority to figure out whether is their regulatory strategy the right way forward? Right.

16:05

Jayashree Sadanandan

And thereafter, if they do decide to get the products approved in the regulation, then you can hire a consultant to make it work, but at least you get an immediate session with the Health Sciences authority. Likewise, those who are doing the clinical trials will also have access to clinical research institute on how they can find principal investigators, how can they find clinical oncologists to support their clinical trials? Where do you get your patients? How do you get your data on patient data to do your. So all of this Singapore is able to offer. So what we are trying to achieve is not to say that we are asking UK companies or startups to leave the UK, but rather experiment your commercial viability in a low risk environment, a small environment like Singapore and see whether you can be successful.

17:02

Jayashree Sadanandan

Because if you can be successful in a small place like Singapore, you can then try much bigger places and the rest of the market in Asia Pacific, in the us, in Korea, in Japan, in China. So that's what we are trying to do.

17:18

Speaker 5

At the Swiss Flight Actor a couple of weeks ago there was a kind of a launch of a biobridge. I'm not sure if you've heard about it. So I want to chat to the CEO of the BIA who was ex CEO of Medicine School in and they've been working for two years on a cross jurisdictional R and D where you can run clinical trials across jurisdictions in the Access Consortium.

17:40

Jayashree Sadanandan

Singapore I think yes, it's definitely a member. So it's the UK.

17:43

Speaker 5

The UK just really to facilitate those clinical trials. But probably what is even more important if you want to run clinical trials in the UK it's important to check as well whether there would be the diversity you'd expect from the agent populations to be part of that trial or because at the end these companies would side of things, especially that you mentioned accelerators. So probably coming into early. Yeah, these companies, so they are probably the precedent stage. So they are.

18:12

Jayashree Sadanandan

Yeah. So if some of them are pre seats, like I said, we have a diverse cohort some of them are actually series C already but some of them are pre seat. So the precede ones are doing the clinical trials in Singapore. They're going to do their pre seat or seat a kind of thing. Yes, they're going to do some trials in Singapore and how this aligns with.

18:34

Speaker 5

With the UK Life science strategy to strengthen their Machada regulatory landscape to run clinical trials in the UK retained that business in the UK.

18:43

Steven Lynch

So that's a great point and I think a big part of what we're trying to do here as well is not just wrapping something in a British flag and saying this is what you need. It's a very different way of how we're looking at it. Singapore needs have specific needs and what we're trying to do that is match that with specific businesses. The other part of that as well is this ties into the UK's industrial and trade strategy. So Singapore is a target market for the UK and obviously Life Sciences is going to be accelerated again through kind of the collaborations that we just spoke about. So that's the bit that I think, you know, jumping on planes and kind of getting out there is just not the way business works anymore.

19:18

Steven Lynch

It's got to be really targeted from the right sector to the right market.

19:22

Jayashree Sadanandan

Yeah. The goal is also for them, when they are successful with the clinical trials there, to come back and bring it to nhs. We do want them to experiment back with nhs with nia, where they can. Yeah.

19:36

Steven Lynch

So that's the goal, because I'd also put that out. This is phase one. So phase one is exports. Phase two is the inbound piece. So enterprise Singapore, which essentially looks at the investment coming back into the UK. They might have connected with some of you in the room as well, that they're very keen in regards to collaborating with Cambridge and the Cambridge Chamber of Commerce and using that as the bridge back in. So, again, that's the way that I see this at the moment. The quickest route to growth for the UK is through exports, but the bigger opportunity is that investment coming back in.

20:13

Jayashree Sadanandan

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20:54

Steven Lynch

So you talked a bit about it being a springboard. Yeah.

20:57

Speaker 5

Is there a sort of a. I know there's a lot relationship between Malaysia and Singapore. Is that.

21:02

Steven Lynch

Is Malaysia the next sort of.

21:03

Speaker 5

If you're in Singapore, Malaysia be the next sort of target area you go for and use Singapore as your face.

21:10

Steven Lynch

Yeah. And so. So the way I describe this accelerator model is it literally tries to remove all the guesswork for businesses. A big part of that is a business will do it themselves and they. They think they're speaking to the right people. What we're trying to do is, and some of the modules might not be of interest for certain businesses. For example, how do you pitch your business? You know, that might be for your marketing team, but actually it's really important. So it's a whole end to end process. And the big part of this is due diligence and I've seen it so many times. So it's my background is China. I spent 12 years in China. I saw lots of business go. It's a massive market. If I sell there, you know I'm going to be a billionaire. And they get it wrong.

21:49

Steven Lynch

And so a big part of this is the due diligence process. So what we're trying to do is that due diligence process once you land in Singapore that's then slightly different to then landing in Malaysia. And you can't just think of the Southeast Asia. It's all the same, it's completely different markets. And so getting Singapore right to then springboard is critical. But once you're there and you get that right it's so much easier than to springboard would be Malaysia would be absolutely yeah.

22:17

Jayashree Sadanandan

And I think going from this pilot is where for BCC what they have is this amazing chambers all over the world. So it's from the company's feedback because we're also asking companies where do you. So this one we did a very targeted approach to see what were the needs in Singapore, what is your strength in the un UK which are the companies because we want to have the success cases. Then if somebody wants to go to Malaysia, they want to go to Indonesia, Vietnam or even come back to the UK then it's to see what is your strength, are you able to make that match that what is it that you really require rather than just being like free for all and you know, so we want to be as targeted as possible.

22:58

Jayashree Sadanandan

Won't the pilots in UK world just end up on the market in Singapore? Is it quite necessary to do the clinical market? No, you don't have to like some of the companies have already done the clinical trials here and so they are now ready to export. Some of them are thinking that they may need for example there's a company here which is dealing with oncology which is a requires a lot more complex kind of R and D capabilities. They have done the phase one clinical trial already in the UK. They want to do a phase two A trial and this is where they were thinking that they could leverage on some of the grants, research grants that are out there in Singapore and see whether can they try that. So it's up to the companies on where they want to do their clinical trials.

23:49

Jayashree Sadanandan

But what we are telling them is you have an opportunity to try if you want to so for example, there's a company on microbiome that has come in which has done some trials in UK already and it's looking at actually non antibiotics therapeutics for gut related cancer. And so they've done some studies here and they say I want to grow my cohort because I can see that this is also a big problem in Asia and so I want to test it because now the where Singapore is focusing on is on precision medicine. And so this makes sense then for them, but it may not be the case for them in another country, for example.

24:30

Jayashree Sadanandan

So for this particular cohort were as targeted as we could be and the 10 companies that we have, so one of them is actually on biologic stabilization and supply chain resilience is quite different from the other side and they don't need any clinical trials for example, but we have brought them there anyway because Asia is a tropical country. If you go to Indonesia, it's got more than 17,000 islands, you need to survive in the heat. You don't have very good cold chain capabilities. So how do you manage to keep your molecules stable and do that cold supply chain resilience at a different temperature? So these are some of the areas that the companies are experimenting with that Singapore made sense. So that's where it is to go.

25:17

Speaker 5

More specifically into the needs. Because oncology is broad. There might be some specific oncology indications that might be more relevant in Asia.

25:26

Jayashree Sadanandan

Or in particularly for Singapore is actually across the whole. So one of them is able to actually offer analytical services in terms on how you use liquid biopsy, for example, for process, for detection and so on. So some of them are there, but there is also a lot of gastric, gastrological, kind of related oncology. There's a lot of oral cancer. That's why can we look at a future of business where you have certain type of PDT therapeutic which can be done by on the dentist chair versus actually going through a whole process. So they were actually really good companies from the UK but they felt that it was quite opportunistic to try it also in Singapore and work with the research scientists in Singapore. So that's why they've gone on this program.

26:24

Steven Lynch

I say this to everyone, it's around due diligence.

26:26

Speaker 5

Yeah.

26:27

Steven Lynch

So you were talking about Vietnam. I mean Vietnam is going to have a very different regulatory environment to China, to Thailand, to Singapore. So for me it's about genuinely understanding what the needs are of that country and what you're offering because again, I've seen it done so Badly in the past where we think we know what they want. And actually sometimes it means you need to completely change your product. So, you know, I'm here not as a Life science expert, but the point is Life science is a product and a service needs to be exported or invested in, you know, so therefore you just need to make sure you're actually doing it in the right way. It's not different. Like the sector is not different from say financial services or selling products. It's about doing your own, the right due diligence.

27:08

Steven Lynch

And that's what we're doing. Like this whole cohort program is the.

27:12

Jayashree Sadanandan

Government and the health regulatories. Is it also working with businesses?

27:16

Steven Lynch

Well, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it absolutely is. But it's really hard to do that by yourself itself. That is the challenge and that's the part of we can insulate it through our network and we can offer clarity. Because again, the biggest challenge to businesses exporting at the moment or going global is geopolitical instability. It's hard to just keep the lights on here at home. So actually why on earth would you risk it? What we are trying to do as a chamber network is offer that insurance, that kind of credibility and clarity of what you do. And then again working with the in market partners to properly deliver because that's ultimately you can have a great product, but who are you selling to, who's buying it and who's distributing it and how do you get into the public hospitals? Because again, the Singapore is very different.

27:54

Steven Lynch

It's a public healthcare system, private healthcare system. That's not where the opportunity is. It is once you look at Malaysia and Philippines, but actually in Singapore it is the public health care. So again it's what we're trying to do is that we have these experts all over the world. Let's bring them together and make sure it's actually streamlined so we can actually get businesses growing.

28:12

Speaker 5

What is the capacity of the British Chamber of Commercial. Let's say you can talk to 10, 20, 50 companies, assess whether they would be a good.

28:21

Steven Lynch

Yeah, so there's 10 businesses. That doesn't sound groundbreaking, but 150 businesses applied. So what we selected was the right businesses. They need to be growth ready. You know, they're not just looking to have a lookout in Singapore. It was the right businesses that we put onto this cohort to be fair as well, businesses paid. So we could have accepted 100 something businesses and we would have had a nice holiday. But that was not the point of this. The point of this was getting the right businesses to actually grow and really make a fundamental difference. And I think the big thing I'm so motivated by this program is every single business that will go on this I'm almost certain will have a deal, will be part of the distribution network in Singapore. Like we are making a difference for these businesses.

28:59

Steven Lynch

So the point is that's not going to shift the dial on GDP which is the bigger mission is actually how do we do generally start to amplify this, replicate this and scale this. That's what we're looking to do. That's why the pilot is so important. So the outcome is how many businesses grew. Yeah. You know, how many deals were created and that's what we're starting to specific the process.

29:18

Speaker 5

If we, I don't know, apply.

29:20

Jayashree Sadanandan

You mean is it. Is, is. Is that what you mean? Yeah. So when you apply for it we actually have quite a detailed questionnaire where we will ask you about first be very clear about what is your product, what is your turnover, do you have any questions? Clinical validation of your product, who are your customers, why are you looking at Singapore? What are your objectives? So we have some of these, we do have, there's myself and there's some other experts that we can have who will discuss to see whether do some of the screening and then to make sure because it's not for us, it's about having, making sure that the company is as successful as possible and making sure that they are really committed.

29:57

Jayashree Sadanandan

So what we've been very impressed by is that the 10 companies we've been engaging have been so involved in the process. They have been vocal, they have been asking really good questions, they have been signing up with the Health Sciences authority to say I won my one to one session. Some of them have already made trips to Singapore even before we are bringing them in September. Because what we have done is basically we have said you don't land in Singapore and they then meet the partners. We have basically run 20 modules every Tuesday.

30:29

Jayashree Sadanandan

So we had two days of an in person session where the different people came to present and then every Tuesday, 9:30 to 11 we have one speaker from Singapore authorities, from businesses, how you can find the hospital sector, selling to public sector, selling to private sector, selling to pharma companies, getting to distributors, all of these things. So they are coming to present on a weekly basis and then through that process they're already setting up all the online sessions now such that when they land in Singapore they actually have a series of meetings to progress their business further. Don't just Land in Singapore and have your first meeting some of them which are doing the analytics and cancer detection. He's actually going to come to Singapore with a pathologist with him already to meet the relevant parties on the other side.

31:18

Jayashree Sadanandan

And this is where Stephen said we've asked some the businesses to pay a small sum of money because we want to make sure with skin in the game they make sure they get outcomes. If there's no skin in the game, they are just going to take it as a sightseeing expedition which is not what we wanted.

31:35

Steven Lynch

I'm just very conscious of our time as well. I think one final point as well is it's also really important working with the private sector. So we have NatWest who are funding this. They're not just a logo on this. They are doing the really critical things that businesses don't understand which is around financing, tax and this is the key to actually how you export. So again we've really thought about the right people. Now ultimately I will say this is a pilot. We want to make this scale and grow. So any feedback or thoughts or engagement that you have would love to hear from you. This is not a one off and done. We'll be replicating this in Singapore, but also looking at the Gulf, Hong Kong, other markets.

32:16

Steven Lynch

So again we're here, please come talk to us, make sure we can shape this to get this right. Because our growth here as a British chamber network is to get businesses growing and scaling and that's the opportunity for the UK. So yeah, thank you so much for your time today, really appreciate it.

32:40

James Parton

Next week we begin a two week summer vacation. So were rerunning our two part interview with Cambridge legend David Clevely which was first aired back in November 2024. So if you're new to the podcast, this is a vital conversation to listen to and if you caught it first time around, you'll no doubt learn something new on a second listen.

33:05

Speaker 1

Today's show was produced by Joe Donaghy of Cambridge TV and supported by our media partner Business Weekly. The Cambridge Tech Podcast is available on all major podcast platforms and on cambridgetechpodcast.com if you've enjoyed this podcast, please give it a five star review. It'll really help others discover the show.

Transcribed by https://fireflies.ai/

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