New article in The Straits Times Singapore.....
It Changed My Life: He is in the business of saving lives
DrSteven Fang of Invitrocue, a life sciences company that cultivatespatient-derived cancer cells in laboratories and tests them againstdrugs to support clinical treatments, says: “We all have a shelflife and use-by date, no matter how smart and rich we are. The recordof who we are will be defined by what we do during this finiteperiod. I hope to define mine giving birth to companies andstart-ups, especially those that do great things like improving andsaving lives.”
PHOTO: SAMUEL RUBY
PUBLISHED APR 12, 2020, 5:00 AM SGT
Hepioneered cord blood banking in Singapore and the region. NowInvitrocue’s Steven Fang wants to revolutionise cancer treatments
Wong Kim Hoh Senior Writer
StevenFang’s brain is like a busy coffee machine, constantly percolatingwith ideas.
Heis working on several at the moment, including two face masks whichhe believes would help in battling the Covid-19 pandemic.
Oneis fitted with a special membrane filled with a coating which killsviruses on contact. The other, also with the virus-killing coating,is a transparent face mask which he reckons would be coveted bygovernments and corporations in a world where biometrics andartificial intelligence reign supreme.
Mindyou, these are just side projects to placate his highly driven Type Apersonality. His main job is to run Invitrocue, a life sciencescompany which he founded in 2012.
Thecompany cultivates patientderived cancer cells in laboratories andtests them against various drugs to support clinical treatments.
Listedon the Australian Securities Exchange, it is headquartered inSingapore, with operations in Germany, Spain, Brazil, Australia,China and Hong Kong.
Itis not his first foray into the life sciences. Dr Fang also foundedCordLife, the first cord blood banking and processing facility inSingapore and South-east Asia
Startingthat company won him many plaudits, including the Technology Pioneeraward at the 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos.
Fora go-getting head honcho, the 54-year-old radiates an unexpectedlycalm and serene aura. His demeanour is pleasant, his speechunhurried. The elder of two boys of an engineer and a housewife, heknew he wanted to be a businessman even as a child.
“Iremember printing and giving out my name cards when I was seven,”says Dr Fang, whose maternal grandfather ran a property business.
Acurious kid who did not like to take things at face value, the formerBukit Batok East Primary School pupil says he was disliked by some ofhis teachers for always challenging them. “They’d say somethingand I’d go: ‘ Are you sure? What makes you so sure?’” saysthe entrepreneur, who continued his studies at Swiss CottageSecondary and St Andrew’s Junior College.
Buthis penchant for questioning has served him well, he says.
“Whensomeone tells me something cannot be done, I’ll always say: ‘Ibet you it can be done. We just haven’t found a way yet’,” hesays. “It’s put me in a space where we’re always breakingboundaries”.
Thescience buff’s A-level results were sterling enough to get himadmitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, consistentlyrated the top tertiary institution in global university rankings.
Buthis dreams of studying there were dashed because his family could notafford the fees.
“Myfather got laid off, my mother wasn’t working and my brother wasstill in school,” he says. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’tresentful, but in hindsight, I really thank my dad for putting methrough those difficult years. I learnt a lot about prioritising.”
Becausean army scholarship entailed a bond, he became a police officerinstead as “the job paid quite well and gave me time off to study”.Bythe time he left the police force five years later, he had completeda degree in computer engineering from the University of Hull inEngland through distance learning.
“Isaw a lot of dead bodies as a police officer. It made me realise howprecious life was, how short it could be and how quickly it could betaken away. In a sense, it steered me strongly towards medicine.”
In1984, he joined Sterling Drug as a business development executive anddid such a good job of opening new distribution channels and productdivisions that he was posted to Chicago.
Henext worked for Baxter Healthcare as a business unit manager in thecompany’s nephrology department, and among other projects, workedon a patent for the redesign of a kidney dialysis drug.
Hisinstincts for technology trends were honed at Baxter because thecompany invests heavily in technology sensing and market sensing.
“Ifa company in the Bay Area announced something new, like a wearabletechnology for dialysis, a few of us would fly out, meet the folksrunning the company and hear their story,” says Dr Fang, who ismarried to a former schoolteacher. They have three children, theyoungest of whom is 18.
Innovations,he says, are seldom “uni-discipline”.
“They’rea coming-together of different disciplines and technologies. Forexample, what we do here at Invitrocue is not just about oncology, italso involves physics and engineering.”
Hisnext stop in 1996 as general manager of Becton Dickinson was alsoinvaluable in his eventual transition to bio-technopreneur.
“Ittaught me about commercialisation, how to get things to market,” hesays of the United States medical technology company whichmanufactures and sells medical devices and instrument systems.
Despitehis professional skills and experience, nothing prepared him for oneof the biggest turning points in his life: starting CordLife,Singapore’s first cord blood banking and processing facility, in2001.
Cordblood banking refers to the storing of a newborn’s stem cellspresent in the umbilical cord after birth. These stem cells can morphinto blood cells which can be used to treat diseases such asleukaemia and other cancers which attack the blood or immunitysystem.
Althoughcord blood banking had already gained traction in the West, theconcept was new, and controversial, in Singapore in 2001.Partingwith his savings and selling his car was not enough to startCordLife, he recalls.
“SoI told my wife: ‘Do you mind moving back to an HDB (flat)?’ Shelooked at me and asked me what I had done. I said I need to sell thecondo to grow a company with a very noble cause,” says Dr Fang, whosold his condo in the East.
Atechnology venture is a unique undertaking, he says.
“It’snot about your strategy or the technology itself. It’s not evenabout whether you have funding or not. It’s about your timelinessto market, whether you are ahead of or behind the market.”
CordLife,he says, was ahead of the market.
“That’swhy we had to spend a huge amount of money to educate the market sothat it could catch up.”
Onmore than a few occasions over the next few years, he nearly threw inthe towel. One of the biggest challenges was meeting the regulator’sexpectations because it was such a new field then.
Hewent without pay for a year and convinced his staff to stay on bygiving them shares. But his resilience paid off.
CordLifetook off in a big way, expanded into Australia and the region, andwas listed both Down Under and in Singapore. “The defining momentfor us was not when we got listed; it was not when we closed fundingof x millions. It was when we could help someone.”
Herecalls the first time cord blood therapy was used in Singapore totreat a three-year-old girl with cerebral palsy in 2009.
Thetreatment relieved the child of constant pain and enabled her to holdher neck up for several minutes when in the past, her head would flopover every few seconds.
“Thatwas the one defining moment of relevance because I understood thenwhy I started the company, why I suffered like crazy, why I enduredthe long nights and why I sold my home.”
Besidestaking CordLife public and growing its presence beyond Singapore toinclude Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kolkata and Sydney, Dr Fang also attaineda string of postgraduate qualifications, including MBAs from Inseadand Tsinghua University, as well as a PhD in Business Administrationwith a focus on immunology from the University of South Australia.
Butin December of 2012, after more than 12 years at the helm, he steppeddown to do something different.
Hepauses, smiles and says: “And now I can talk about my 1-2-3 rule.You must have one idea that you work on during your waking hours, twoideas that you have invested in or are percolating in the background.And behind these two, you must have three other crazy ideas.”
Barelya year later, he set up Invitrocue with scientist Hanry Yu in 2014.In the beginning, the company pushed a technology which allows themto create a human liver in the lab to test different drugs ortreatments.
Itdid brisk business with pharma companies but Dr Fang felt that thecompany needed to be more than just a one-trick pony.
Hehit on the idea of growing cancer cells.
“Oncologyis a huge market. At last count, it was a $3 trillion market, and youcan’t go wrong with a market that size. And it’s not nascent,it’s well defined.”
Theidea is simple, he says.
“Youbuild an avatar of the patient’s own cancer cell and if you haveenough copies, you can test different drugs,” he says, adding thatthe technology helps both doctors and patients to, among otherthings, save time and decide on the best clinical strategy.
Thecompany is already working on clinical trials with oncologists in theregion and Singapore, including those from National UniversityHospital, KK Women’s And Children’s Hospital, and the NationalCancer Centre Singapore.
Invitrocuealso has an offshoot Invivocue, which supplies humanised immunesystem mice and cell products to research institutions,pharmaceutical, clinical research and biotechnology companies.
Runninga business, says Dr Fang, is like polishing a diamond.
“Youwouldn’t know how precious a diamond is until you start polishingit. And polishing is not a redundant process, it is a learning one,”says the former co-founder of private market platform CapBridge, andpartner of Clearbridge Accelerator, a technology commercialiser andincubator.
Hecontinues: “We all have a shelf life and use-by date, no matter howsmart and rich we are. The record of who we are will be defined bywhat we do during this finite period. I hope to define mine givingbirth to companies and start-ups, especially those that do greatthings like improving and saving lives.
”Whensomeone tells me something cannot be done, I’ll always say: ‘Ibet you it can be done. We just haven’t found a way yet’.It’sput me in a space where we’re always breaking boundaries. ’’
DRSTEVEN FANG, on how his penchant for questioning has served him well.
https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/its-all-about-saving-lives
