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INEX Innovate (or INEX for brief) is Asia’s first ladies’s well being expertise group. As one in every of Asia’s quickest rising medical expertise builders and medical laboratory operators, INEX focuses on creating and commercialising molecular diagnostic applied sciences within the areas of fetal well being and feminine oncology. With a broad business portfolio of validated molecular diagnostic checks for prenatal well being, and girls’s oncology. INEX operates a Faculty of American Pathologists (CAP) accredited medical laboratory that gives diagnostic testing and contract analysis companies in Singapore to shoppers proper throughout the South East Asian area.
Along with INEX’s rising portfolio of applied sciences which might be beneath improvement, INEX is actively pursuing merger and acquisition alternatives, as a part of a regional rollup technique throughout Asia, with the primary acquisition of a Taiwan genomics enterprise introduced earlier this yr. The corporate is exploring additional potential acquisitions in Malaysia, Indonesia and India, with the goal of making a high two firm in fetal-maternal and girls’s well being diagnostics in Asia. Based by maternal-fetal drugs specialists, INEX has been recognised globally with a number of accolades together with The Straits Instances Singapore’s fastest-growing corporations and the Monetary Instances’ high-growth corporations Asia-Pacific and has achieved accolades from Frost & Sullivan and the World Mental Property Organisation.
Coming off his latest win on the EY Singapore Entrepreneur of the Yr Awards. LUXUO speaks to INEX Innovate’s chief government Kane Black on INEX’s function on the way forward for fetal-maternal care and oncology alongside INEX’s ambition to “democratise diagnostics”.
What introduced you into the sector of diagnostic analysis?
Having been within the life sciences trade for a number of years on the funding aspect, diagnostics was an important half that one in every of my authentic co-founder’s, Ivanna Salehudin and I, noticed vital unmet medical wants, particularly round ladies’s well being. The significance of diagnostics can’t be overestimated, as with out the supply of correct diagnostics you don’t have remedy.
This culminated within the institution of Nova Satra Dx Pte Ltd – which started analysis & improvement right into a extremely correct liquid biopsy, or blood primarily based, breast most cancers diagnostic take a look at, an organization later backed by Malaysian conglomerate Genting Berhad. In 2019 following a number of conferences with the unique founders of INEX Improvements Alternate — Prof Mahesh Choolani and Dr. Sidney Yee along with medtech investor Kok Hwee Sim — we noticed a chance to carry collectively, by the use of a merger, Singapore’s two ladies’s well being life sciences corporations – this led to the creation of what’s now often known as INEX Innovate Pte Ltd.
Since then, the corporate has quickly grown from 10 workforce members to 55 members, with 35 in Singapore and 20 primarily based in Taiwan. We now have launched 11 new lab-based medical testing companies offering them to a rising community of greater than 200 medical doctors, clinics, and hospitals proper throughout Asia.
INEX now has 34 patents within the ladies’s and maternal well being space and 17 emblems, in addition to a variety of copyrights, domains and different mental property (IP) tied to its applied sciences. How essential is analysis and improvement (R&D) in your small business? What proportion of your revenues are reinvested in R&D?
As a medical innovator, INEX Innovate is deeply concerned in academia and analysis and improvement. We not solely assist the native eco system via supporting analysis, licensing and commercialising the applied sciences which might be developed by the INEX workforce but additionally in Singapore’s centres of scientific excellence. INEX additionally offers the scientific and medical group entry to our applied sciences, I.P and know-hows to innovate and create new merchandise.
By way of the proportion of revenues reinvested in R&D, this has fluctuated dramatically as a result of our pivot and deal with COVID-19 testing in the course of the pandemic once we centered all sources in supporting Singapore in COVID PCR testing with R&D taking a again seat. In 2022 and 2023 we refocused on R&D and invested roughly 50 % of revenues in R&D. In a normalised atmosphere usually we’d count on to see 10 to fifteen % of income being invested in R&D.
Registered IP being developed is essential because it offers the incentives that allow innovators throughout all kinds of industries to undertake the customarily dangerous, troublesome, costly, and time-consuming course of of making new-to-the-world improvements. Right now we see such intangible property, corresponding to IP rights, which now command roughly 90 % of the S&P500 market worth in 2020.
Established in Singapore, how has the nation which is understood for supporting quick rising SMEs, helped the expansion of INEX?
Asia stands as the colourful epicenter of fast-growing markets, fascinating the eye of companies and traders alike. With a dynamic mix of numerous cultures, progressive applied sciences, and a burgeoning center class, the continent is undeniably the place to be for these in search of unprecedented alternatives. Having lived in Asia for nearly 20 years, in Japan, Hong Kong and now Singapore, it will be, in my view troublesome to discover a higher place to determine a enterprise at the moment than Singapore. With a well-developed ecosystem, deep pool of expert expertise, high quality manufacturing, the most effective infrastructure on the planet mixed with glorious assist from governing businesses, whereas being in South-East Asia, one of many world’s quickest rising and more and more essential areas of the world, Singapore has been instrumental within the progress of INEX.
INEX was based by training obstetricians, gynaecologists (OBGYNs) and key opinion leaders in fetal-maternal care and oncology. How has such a debuting line-up in creating the enterprise impacted INEX’s core mission?
The founding genesis of INEX as a ladies’s and fetal maternal well being medical innovator stems from our co-founder Prof Mahesh Choolani’s deep expertise within the ladies’s well being enviornment as a practising OBGYN and pre-eminent key opinion chief within the space of fetal maternal well being. This basis uniquely offers INEX with deep insights into unmet medical wants which has led us to many first’s – together with being the primary firm in Asia to launch Non Invasive Prenatal Testing “NIPT” with our iGene® NIPT take a look at, OvaCis® an intraoperative level of care take a look at package for sufferers who current with ovarian cysts and various different applied sciences beneath improvement together with LEXI® a Pre-Natal Diagnostic Check and EpiDx® a blood primarily based breast most cancers screening take a look at.
You have got said a number of occasions that INEX’s ambition is to “democratise diagnostics” by making these medical procedures extra correct, accessible and inexpensive to the general public. Are you able to elaborate additional there?
I used the time period “democratise diagnostics” to imply permitting or offering affected person’s with a alternative. A alternative within the sense that we make diagnostic checks extra correct, which is important for the early prognosis of illnesses corresponding to most cancers, extra broadly accessible in order that they’re extra accessible and at a decrease price to communities – this disruption can actually solely be a profit to the societies inside which we reside.
Our imaginative and prescient is to democratise medical diagnostics to ladies throughout Asia and all over the world. Bringing them improved early detection that’s extra accessible, giving ladies and moms larger certainty and confidence of their well being and discovering illness early, thereby bettering their probability of medical success. At INEX, we see each affected person who interacts with our merchandise as a singular being who deserves particular person care and a focus. Buyer satisfaction is within the core of our imaginative and prescient and coronary heart of our operations.
INEX’s epiDx® is a patient-friendly possibility that reduces discomfort from customary imaging processes. By utilizing a blood pattern, it shows greater sensitivity and specificity than present strategies. Are you able to tell us how distinctive is that this particular course of out there?
One of many huge points throughout Asia on the subject of breast most cancers is the stubbornly low screening participation charges. Principally, ladies who ought to be going for normal screening aren’t. This results in a late-stage breast most cancers prognosis when affected person’s outcomes are drastically decreased. By transferring to blood-based breast most cancers screenings on the affected person’s level of care GP, we are going to take away the related discomfort, which ladies usually say they really feel is degrading, and supply larger accessibility to encourage breast most cancers screening.
Moreover, it’s estimated 50 % of Asian ladies have, what is called, dense breast tissue. Dense breast tissue could make irregular findings tougher to see on a mammogram as a result of dense breast tissue and a few irregular breast adjustments, corresponding to calcifications and tumours, each seem as white areas within the mammogram.
With this in thoughts we went about seeking to develop a expertise which firstly has improved sensitivity and specificity, secondly eliminated the related discomfort and thirdly was accessible at the usual level of care – with a view that we might carry into common screening applications ladies who aren’t at present present process any type of screening and due to this fact enhance affected person outcomes.
INEX has carried out substantial research on ovarian cancers. What has been the finds and sensible developments within the labs and on the bottom?
Ovarian most cancers is the fifth most prevalent most cancers suffered by ladies globally. Whereas that is much less prevalent than different cancers it’s sadly one of many deadliest cancers as a result of it generally being identified at a complicated stage, when the prospect of profitable remedy is drastically decreased.
That is due partly to there being no correct molecular screening take a look at at present present to detect early-stage ovarian most cancers, so preliminary ovarian most cancers prognosis generally discovered primarily based on signs, corresponding to bloating, fatigue, weight reduction, belly distention, pelvic ache and feeling full shortly. Sadly, by the point most sufferers with ovarian most cancers see a physician, 70 % to 80 % are already late stage. That’s as a result of the signs of ovarian most cancers are so imprecise, and sufferers usually expertise them for months earlier than in search of assist.
With this unmet want in tackling ovarian most cancers, the workforce at INEX have developed two options. The primary is OvaCis® an intra-operative level of care take a look at, that’s used to check if an ovarian cyst is benign or malignant (cancerous). As many as 1 in 10 ladies sooner or later of their lifetime will develop an ovarian cyst. Whereas these cysts will, as a rule, show to be benign and can clear up with out remedy, it will be important that they’re examined. Present observe is what is called a “frozen part” the place a surgeon removes a part of the tissue and sends to a pathologist who freezes the tissue with liquid nitrogen, slices the tissue into sections, after which stains it with particular staining options in order that it may be seen beneath a microscope. This course of takes as much as an hour and isn’t universally accessible. INEX’s OvaCis® answer is a extremely delicate and particular, and is made on a lateral circulate machine, like a COVID-19 ART take a look at package for ease of use, with out want for classy procedures. It merely makes use of the fluid which is from inside the cyst, which is then positioned onto the machine and visualised inside quarter-hour to decide if the cyst is benign or malignant.
Secondly we’re creating a blood-based ovarian most cancers screening take a look at dubbed Xena® – a minimally invasive and environment friendly technique of screening for ovarian most cancers. Xena® measures the degrees of microRNA within the blood, particularly choosing up an irregular expression of microRNAs which might be correlated with the presence of ovarian most cancers. Xena® is aimed to be launched in late 2024.
You shared that “with a gifted, entrepreneurial and devoted workforce, we’re on monitor to changing into Asia’s main molecular diagnostic developer”. What’s subsequent on the horizon for INEX, an IPO?
INEX is increasing each organically, via new product launches and new market entry, and thru acquisition. As a part of our pan-Asia roll-up technique we just lately introduced the acquisition of a Taiwan primarily based genomics group, that has a rising North Asia enterprise with revenues emanating from Taiwan, Japan and Korea.
We’re at present in negotiations on one other potential acquisition of a agency which is the market chief of their nation in fetal-maternal and girls’s well being testing, moreover we’re exploring different potential synergistic M&A alternatives. With this we goal to be a top-two participant in each market in Asia in fetal-maternal and girls’s well being.
We now have been actively learning various potential IPO alternatives right here in Singapore, London, New York and a number of the regional bourses. Nevertheless in gentle of the present difficult and sub-optimal situations within the IPO market, we’re affected person till a window of alternative opens to progress to an eventual IPO.
You have got gained the extremely coveted EY Singapore Entrepreneur of the Yr Award for the biotechnology sector in 2022. What had been your ideas on receiving this recognition for the work you and your workforce have produced?
Being one in every of six winners to be chosen by an impartial judging panel from near 140 nominations for the EY Singapore Entrepreneur of the Yr Award 2022 was an extremely proud second for me and my workforce. On the finish of the day as a frontrunner one can solely be nearly as good as one’s workforce and this recognition actually is a credit score to the whole workforce of devoted, pushed, and good members at INEX Innovate and iGene Laboratory. I’m grateful and honored to function Chief Government of INEX and iGene.
For those who had been to call one mentor who has impressed you in your life and profession, who would that be?
I’ve learnt and been impressed by many individuals in my life from all completely different walks, from my first Japanese boss to enterprise companions, family and friends. I’m an avid reader of biographies and auto biographies and consider these are sometimes a supply of nice inspiration. You possibly can be taught, and be impressed by, what has taken somebody 20, 30, 40 or 50 years of expertise in a number of hundred pages.
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