SINGAPORE: When any new virus emerges, Rosemary Tan’s team goes into overdrive. It is something they do regardless of whether the virus has, or ever will, arrive in Singapore.
When the Zika virus hit Singapore last year, they were prepared.
In 2015, Dr Tan and her team of scientists and researchers at Veredus Laboratories developed Vere Fever kit, a lab-on-a-chip that can detect seven tropical diseases – Malaria, Dengue, Chikungunya, West Nile, Yellow Fever, Japanese Encephalitis and Zika – with just one drop of blood.
She says Zika was easy to anticipate, given the first outbreak in Oceania in 2014, and it was “logical” that it would eventually travel to Singapore.
“Veredus” is a Latin word meaning a messenger horse that can travel swiftly. Tan claims her company aims to live the meaning of the word.
“We want to deliver a message to our customers fast. In our case, that message is diagnostic kits for major diseases,” she says.
In her vision of the world, Tan would probably like to be called Captain Rosemary Tan of the Starship Veredus. In her captain’s log, she would document tales of scientific experiments leading to the successful development of diagnostic kits for the worlds’ deadliest infectious diseases.
This is because in addition to being a scientist and CEO of a homegrown biotech firm, Veredus Labs, she is a hard-core Trekkie. She has watched all the television series and movies in the Star Trek franchise. One of her dreams is to make a medical tricorder, a multi-function handheld device used in Star Trek that could enable you to self-diagnose medical conditions within seconds.
You wouldn’t be able to tell all this just by looking at her. She’s the antithesis of a science nerd, instead exuding the air of a powerful businesswoman who’s got it all under control. She wears a pastel-hued skirt suit and power heels and her make-up is carefully done, imbuing her with a dewy glow.
She speaks with casual aplomb and her voice has an almost musical modulation. Her hands fly in formation with her words which constitute a considerable amount of Singlish, not because she can’t speak proper English, but only because she wants to keep it real and light.
However, after some small talk, things get heavy as we start discussing the state of entrepreneurship in Singapore and, of course, her work.
PLENTY TO BE PROUD OF
Rosemary Tan receiving the Great Women of Our Time 2017 Award. (Photo: Rosemary Tan)
The Vere Fever kit is just one of 10 diagnostic kits that her team has developed. The others are designed to identify influenza subtypes, tuberculosis, food-borne illnesses, as well as biological agents.
Veredus’s kits are used wherever there’s a need for enhanced security, including at international airports and global events. In fact, Veredus test kits were used to detect biological threats during the 2014 Fifa World Cup in Brazil.
“It was SARS that inspired me,” says Tan.
“I looked at the way SARS was diagnosed in Singapore, and I thought “Hey, why can’t we do it ourselves? Why are we sending samples to other countries?
“My biggest achievement so far is to recognise this need and to be able to say we can address this, before anyone else did.
“I suggested getting out of the hospitals. Let’s go to the airports. Let’s go to where diagnostics is needed and can be done on the spot. I’m very proud of that.”
She has plenty to be proud of, having founded Veredus in 2004 in her effort to commercialise technologies from institutional labs. “There was a gap. We had to get them out of the labs and make sure they reached the people who needed them.”
The following year, Tan and her team created the world’s first diagnostic kit for the lethal H5N1 bird flu strain – selling it to 30 countries. Veredus then partnered STMicroelectronics to develop a lab-on-a-chip. Vere Flu, another world-first that could detect more than 10 flu subtypes and yield results within two hours, was launched in 2008.
“It all comes from having crazy ideas to do the impossible and working hard to make them possible.”
She went into business largely because she wanted the freedom to implement these crazy ideas.
After working in labs in Japan and at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology in Singapore, she embarked on her PhD, then spent a year as a Post-Doctoral Fellow before starting her first business, Genecet Biotechnologies, a life sciences education company, in 2001.
“We develop programmes for schools. We turn the classroom into a pretend crime scene and send kids in to collect DNA and do DNA fingerprinting. It’s fantastic.
“I wish I had learnt science that way,” she says wistfully.
Her wistfulness quickly turns into pride, “I have a lot of students who come and tell me, ‘Hey, Dr Tan, it’s because I attended your class that I became a scientist!'”
She doesn’t teach anymore, but has a team of people keeping it going.
For her, the love for science was “inborn”.
“It’s in my character. I’m naturally curious. I’m naturally aggressive in my quest for knowledge.”
NO INTENTION OF BECOMING A BUSINESSWOMAN
“I did not attend business classes so I just followed my gut,” says Rosemary Tan. (Photo: Veredus Labs)
So why not stay a scientist? Why go into business?
“I didn’t intend to go into business. I just wanted to be independent.”
I wonder if this means she doesn’t play well with others.
“No. I enjoy working with people. I don’t mind reporting to people. But for my sanity, I need freedom to explore. When you work for somebody, it’s very difficult to justify some of the things you want to do that may fail.”
At Veredus, the team explores and fails fast, but when asked about failures, Tan can’t think of any. Like many successful people, she perceives them as “learning points.”
Still, running a biotech business has been a challenge for her.
“Commercialisation is very tough. You need to have validations, documentation to submit to the authorities for regulatory checks, certification. It’s a huge process. That’s why many universities and research labs cannot do it. It’s taken me 15 years to understand commercialisation.”
But even as she says this, one can tell it brings her immense gratification, so much so that the hard work doesn’t feel hard.
She does have some regrets though.
“I did not attend business classes so I just followed my gut. Looking back now, the first thing that I could have done better was to really scrutinise research costs. About five or ten years ago I was like a cowboy in the Wild Wild West, doing whatever I liked. But luckily for me, business was good and I didn’t run into problems. But today, I’ve learnt to be more prudent.”
BORN TO BE IN BUSINESS
Rosemary Tan might be a “natural salesman” but is a “scientist at heart”. (Photo: Veredus Labs)
Then she makes a surprising revelation.
“As I grow the company, I realise I have a really interesting personality. I might be a scientist, but I’m also a natural salesman. I’m born to be in business. I enjoy understanding demand and supply. I enjoy convincing people to use our technology. I’m Chief Scientific Officer, and a scientist at heart but I enjoy the business part a lot too and I’m really good at it.”
It becomes evident to me again that humility is not Tan’s strong suit. But I wouldn’t describe her as a braggart. There’s something about Dr Rosemary Tan that makes her words come across merely as an innocent confession of her innermost thoughts.
“USE YOUR BRAIN, LAH!”
Rosemary Tan speaking at an SG Innovate Forum. Her advice to young entrepreneurs often is, “Use your brain lah.” (Photo: Veredus Labs)
While she is now comfortable in the business world, some of the lessons she has learnt have made her more observant of other entrepreneurs’ experiences.
“The problem is that even today, many people want to become entrepreneurs for the sake of it, for the “glamour” of being an entrepreneur,” she says.
Her advice to young entrepreneurs is simply: “Use your brain, lah!”
“There’s absolutely no glamour in being an entrepreneur. It’s really hard work and I don’t think a person who’s fresh out of school should be an entrepreneur,” she says decisively.
“You should spend some years working for somebody, either for a very successful businessman or a big organisation, to learn and gain experience in different departments. Learn how to manage finances and so on. Don’t start something when you’re fresh out of school just because you want to be a boss. Experience counts. Paper qualifications don’t mean you can be a good businessman. Look at the numbers. Look at the possible demand for your business idea.
“It’s more complicated and disruptive today. Whatever I say now may not make any sense tomorrow. Businesspeople and workers need to take action on this.”
TIME TO DREAM
I ask about her team, a mix of scientists and sales and businesspeople.
“They are wonderful. We discuss, decide and commit. I’m always looking for people like that – good at the job and want to improve constantly. I let them be themselves. I want people to have creativity and independence to work.”
Creativity often seems like a scarce resource, I remark.
“I give them freedom and time to dream. If you are too busy doing “normal stuff”, you won’t have time for innovation. I always tell my people, whatever you do – 100 per cent or 200 per cent – take out 30 per cent. Keep your plate only 70 per cent full. That time is for you to dream. We call it ‘dreaming time’.”
Kids in school are also so busy these days, but are they creative? Don’t expect your employees or kids to be creative if you don’t let them dream.”
THE NEXT BIG THING
“I give them (my team) freedom and time to dream,” says Rosemary Tan. (Photo: Veredus Labs)
The next big thing her team is working on is a medical tricorder.
“One day, all you’ll need to do is scan the body and you’ll be able to tell what disease you have immediately. It can go into your phone as an app, maybe.”
But she is also realistic.
“Nobody is going to be able to do the whole thing alone. But there are pieces floating around and I think in about 30 years, all these pieces will join and there will be one company that makes it. May not be us. But we will be part of the process.”
She adds, “It depends on funding and resources. It depends on really getting other collaborators together. It can be challenging. I’m really happy to talk to others, work with them. But not everyone thinks the same way. I really think we need to have more open-minded sharing.”
Tan is an eternal optimist.
“I always tell my team we need to be part of the process. If you lay the tracks, somebody will use this track and use all this information to make that ultimate device.”
But this isn’t the only “next big thing”.
“Today, I realise there’s a huge need to actually safeguard our environment and constantly monitor our environment for potential pandemics, epidemics and biological attacks. We need a bio surveillance system.”
She reckons this could be developed in five years.
MAKING MEDICAL BREAKTHROUGHS AFFORDABLE TO ALL
While she’s in the business of rolling out solutions, she admits some of them are expensive. Granted, financial sustainability is vital for companies like hers to continue producing innovative solutions, but what’s the point if communities that need such solutions can’t use them simply because of price?
For instance, Veredus’s Vere Fever kit costs S$100, too expensive for those in developing countries. While it is a superior test and experts say the cost is justifiable, I ask if she’s making any efforts to ensure affordability.
“Yes, that’s bad. If we have volume, our cost will go down and we can sell it cheaper. But I’ve also been talking to my distributor in China and we’re experimenting with distributing at cost. It’s a slow process. Very, very tough. But I’m willing to try. Let’s see if we can sustain the volume.”
NO HELP WHEN SHE STARTED OUT
“I had no help when I first started out,” says Rosemary Tan. (Photo: Veredus Labs)
Today, Veredus is backed by major players. It is a majority-owned subsidiary of Accuron Technologies Limited, a precision engineering and technology group wholly-owned by Temasek Holdings.
But when Tan started out in the industry, she did so with her own capital, money she made from her life sciences education business.
“Today, there is so much government support and so many funding opportunities. I hadn’t even heard of venture capitalists when I first started out.”
So does she begrudge the local start-ups who are benefiting from these initiatives today?
“I wish I had gotten such support, but I don’t wish the newer companies didn’t have it. If you can help them, why not?”
But is there a risk that businesses would become too dependent?
“I can tell you that whether or not you give him money, he will succeed anyway if he has the right technology and business model. If he doesn’t have that, all the money you throw at him won’t help.”
“Out of 10 companies, maybe only one or two will succeed. But if you don’t support at all, these companies wouldn’t have started up and we wouldn’t have an ecosystem. So are we going to give up those two companies just because we didn’t want to fund the other eight, or we don’t want to make them too dependent?”
PETROL MARTS THAT INSPIRE
Finally, I ask her what she does to relax. Aside from spending time with family, she admits she enjoys shopping at petrol marts.
“When I come home, I exercise and have dinner. By then, it could be 10pm. Then I’ll realise that we don’t have groceries so I go to the petrol stations near my house. There are several. They have interesting products with interesting packaging and I get ideas from there. We use some of the packaging ideas for our kits. Sometimes the fonts on the packaging are nice and I take pictures and tell my people, this font is very cute, why don’t we use this font for our promotional material?”
I remark that she thinks about work even while supposedly relaxing.
“I might be thinking about work, but it’s not stressful at all. It’s all I need to de-stress and really wind down for the day.”
And off goes Captain Rosemary Tan of the Starship Veredus, no doubt, hatching a plan for a petrol mart adventure after this interview. She may not be traversing the universe, but many would agree her work is making a difference.
