Stronger R&D foundation for improved products

Over the years, Singapore has prided itself for being the location of high-end industrial manufacturing companies. These companies have embarked on research programs that led to several innovations to improve the quality of plastics products available in the market today. Early this year, scientists from the Institute of Materials Research and Engineering (IMRE) in Singapore has developed a new patented film that has the highest reported water vapor barrier performance to date. Tested by the UK Centre for Process Innovation, results showed that the new film is 1,000 times more resistant to moisture than existing technologies. This means a longer lifetime for plastic electronic devices such as solar cells and flexible displays that use these high-end films but whose sensitive organic materials are easily degraded by water vapor and oxygen. This breakthrough technology is seen to benefit the fast-growing plastic electronics industry that aims to deliver flexible, lightweight and cheap electronics products to consumers in ways that silicon electronics may never reach such as disposable or wraparound displays, cheap identification tags, low cost solar cells and chemical and pressure sensitive sensors. A research institute of the Singapore's Agency of Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), IMRE誷 breakthrough technology came in the wake of Singapore's moves to jumpstart a plastic electronics industry as part of its long-term plan of pushing for knowledge-intensive industries. Singapore is taking advantage of the fact that world plastic electronics market is expected to reach over US$23 billion in the next 5 years. Another more recent major contribution of IMRE's research efforts involved a breakthrough in microneedle technologies that perfected a new range of patented microneedles that can be mass produced more readily and at a lower cost than current microneedle technologies. They had taken five years to perfect the proprietary materials technology. The innovative microneedles by IMRE also offers unique structures for better drug delivery. The breakthrough will allow more patients to enjoy pain-free injections and extractions of bodily fluids in the near future. "Microneedles are commercially available but they are still very expensive. Our technology has produced cheaper, easier-to-make plastic microneedles with unique structures for better drug delivery," said Mr. Lim Chee Yen, the IMRE researcher who will be Chief Executive Officer of the new spin-off company, Micropoint Technologies Pte Ltd. IMRE's range of microneedles, which can be as small as 0.1mm or larger than 1mm, are made from silicon, metal and plastic. The use of plastics, in particular, will make the microneedles more accessible to patients as plastics are easier and cheaper to process and manufacture than most other materials. In addition, the microneedles also come in a variety of designs, like those with side-ports that allow for smoother drug delivery and bodily fluid extraction as opposed to regular microneedles that have only a single opening at the tip. The innovative technology has attracted the interest of Japanese conglomerate Sumitomo Corporation Asia, which will invest as a partner to form Micropoint Technologies Pte Ltd. To seal its position as a major R&D center in Asia, Singapore recently opened Fusionopolis, its second major R&D hub. The first major hub, Biopolis, opened five years ago. The futuristic 30-hectare Fusionopolis, which will be developed over six phases, is the country's icon for R&D in the interactive media, physical sciences, engineering and technology. Home to public sector research institutes and corporate labs, Fusionopolis is specially designed to break down the barriers in organizations and allow multidisciplinary teams from both national and corporate laboratories to flourish. Altogether, there wilNike LunarEpic Flyknit