Singapore Life Science Case Competition

The Singapore Life Science Case Competition, the first of its kind, is a business case competition focused on the life sciences and pharmaceutical industries. Put together by Biotech Connection Singapore, L.E.K. Consulting and ESSEC Business School, this competition is open to all university students, postgraduates, researchers and biotech/medtech entrepreneurs.

Why join a case competition?

This is a great opportunity for all participants with little to no prior consulting experience, to a) apply your analytical skills and scientific insight to solve real-life business problems, b) develop business acumen for career advancement, and c) to expand your professional network.

As part of joining this competition, you will also get to take part in a consulting training workshop to get up to speed with basic consulting skills. The winning team of the competition will be awarded a cash prize of $1000, a tour of the L.E.K. Consulting office, and lunch with L.E.K. associates.
Competition timeline and format

Online registration

• Form teams of 3 to 4 and sign up through this Google form
• You are encouraged to form your teams ahead. However, if you do not have a team, you may sign up as an individual and form your teams later during the information session
• Individuals who have previously worked as or are currently working as full-time professional consultants are not eligible to apply
• The deadline for sign up is 28th Sept, 11.59 pm
• If you would like to change your details or withdraw, please email us directly at consulting@biotechconnection-sg.org
• Update: Information on the workshop has been sent out to all registered participants by email. Please contact us if you did not receive it

Information Session and Consulting Workshop

• The info session followed by training workshop will take place on 10th Oct (Wed) at ESSEC Business School, 5 Nepal Park, Singapore 139408
• Attendance is highly encouraged, but not mandatory. However, it is mandatory for all teams to have at least one representative present at the info session
• All individual participants may form their teams during the info session. You MUST submit your team name, team member list and appointed team leader contact (for communication purposes) to BCS before the end of the networking break. If you are unable to attend the Info session in person, please make sure another member of your team submits your name, or inform us so that we can slot you into a team. No changes to team members are allowed after this.
• Only teams that are finalised by end of day on 10th Oct may proceed with the competition
• Note that the workshop is only open to participants of the competition

Preliminaries

• Preliminary cases will be released after the info session and workshop. Further details of the submission will be disclosed during the info session
• Teams will be given 5 days to solve the case and submit their slide decks (in MS PowerPoint format or PDF) and a video pitch of the presentation (voiceover with presentation allowed)
• Shortlisted teams will move on to the Finals and will be given feedback to improve on their presentations

Finals

• The top 4 teams selected for the Finals are given 15 min to present followed by a 10 min Q&A with the judging panel
• At least 3 members of every team have to present in front of the judges
• The esteemed panel of judges for the Finals, representing business, education, consulting, and pharma, will be disclosed at a later date
• The final presentation will be held on 24th Oct, 5.30 pm – 7.45 pm, at the Grand Amphitheatre of ESSEC Business School, 5 Nepal Park, Singapore 139408
• The Finals will be open to all teams who were not selected for the finals and other registered attendees. Registration for this event is now open

Any changes to the above details will be updated on this webpage and communicated via email. Finally, if you have any questions please send them to consulting@biotechconnection-sg.org

Fabio La Mola
Partner, L.E.K. Consulting Singapore

Fabio is a Partner in L.E.K.’s Singapore office, heading the Healthcare and Life Sciences Practice.  Fabio has lived in the US, Italy, UK, China, and now Singapore. He has over 18 years of experience across healthcare services and life sciences. He has worked with many clients across Southeast Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the US on strategy, organizational redesign and performance improvement. He was educated in Italy, earning a business degree at Bocconi University in Milan, and started working with PwC in the US, where he advised oil and gas clients. After an MBA at Kellogg, Fabio started working with ZS Associates in Italy, and since then has been involved in advising clients in Life Sciences. After moving to L.E.K In London, Fabio built his knowledge of Life Sciences across segments, from provision, to medical devices to pharmaceuticals. He has advised both the largest firms globally and start-ups. He was in China with L.E.K, then managing director for the IMS Health Consulting team in Singapore, and rejoined L.E.K. in Singapore about a year ago. In his personal time, he is an advisor to the National Research Foundation for the Central Gap Fund in Biotech, an angel investor, and an avid sailor.

Prof Jamus Jerome Lim
Associate Professor, ESSEC Business School

Jamus Lim is an Associate Professor of Economics at ESSEC Business School, and the chief economist of the ThirdRock Group, a leading independent investment management firm overseeing more than 2 billion in assets. Prior to his return to academia, he was a lead economist at the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, where he oversaw economic inputs underlying tactical and strategic asset allocation for the sovereign fund’s multi-hundred-billion dollar portfolio. Before that he was a senior economist with the World Bank, where he led a number of initiatives on macroeconomic forecasts, along with analysis of trade, finance, and governance issues in East Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. His research expertise and interests lie at the intersection of international macro-finance, political economy, and development economics. An old Rafflesian, he graduated with first-class honors from the University of Southern Queensland, and went on to graduate work at the London School of Economics, the University of California, and Harvard University.

Dr John Thornback
Chief Operating Officer, Diagnostics Development Hub (DxD), ETPL, A*STAR

Dr Thornback was educated at Imperial College London in Chemistry and followed up with a Ph.D in Inorganic Chemistry with Prof. Sir Geoffrey Wilkinson, Nobel Laureate at the same institution. He held several academic posts at University of London and Loughborough University in UK, then joined industry as Head of Radiopharmaceutical R&D for Medgenix SA, in Belgium, one of Europe’s first biotech companies. He subsequently took senior positions within sales and marketing and general management which led to 28 years of diagnostic industry experience in executive management, including CEO positions in Canada, UK and Singapore. He has raised start up funding for a number of companies and changed large public research centres to successful private enterprises by maintaining academic excellence but delivering commercial targets. Commercially, he has identified, negotiated and implemented key commercial partnerships and technology licensing deals that radically improved the businesses and developed healthy pipelines of products and established route to market through global commercial networks. He is currently Chief Operating Officer of the Diagnostics Development Hub (DxD) of Exploit Technologies, a Director at the Centre of Probe Development and Commercialisation (McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada), Chair of Sestria Ltd, and was Managing Director of Apta Biosciences Pte Ltd in Singapore.

Joyce Lim
Head of Marketing and Market Access, Johnson and Johnson Pte Ltd

Joyce started her career as a Singapore Registered Pharmacist and has multiple exposure to sales, business development, marketing, regulatory and quality roles in the pharmaceutical industry as well as healthcare institutions both local and overseas. Joyce obtained her Bachelor Degree in Pharmacy at National University of Singapore and her Master in Business Administration in Health and Medical Services at Haub School of Business in United States of America.

Raphael Ho
General Manager, Amgen Singapore/Malaysia/Brunei

Raphael is in a ‘start-up entrepreneurial’ role at Amgen, a global Fortune 500 company, tasked with setting up the company across Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei, as part of Amgen’s global footprint expansion. Since 2015, Raphael has built the team and led the Amgen commercial organization to launch new, innovative medicines in the region, during which the business has grown to become the fastest growing biopharmaceutical company ranked among the top 20. Prior to joining Amgen, Raphael spent more than 10 years with pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline in various commercial and business development capacities. Before moving into his current role, Raphael was responsible for GSK’s Bone franchise overseeing 45 markets in a Global Commercial Director role that was based out of London, UK. Raphael holds double MBA degrees from Waseda University (Tokyo) and Nanyang Business School (Singapore).