Sze Wee Tan
Assistant Chief Executive Science & Engineering Research Council at A*STAR
Prof TAN Sze Wee (MBBS, MBA)
Assistant Chief Executive
Science & Engineering Research Council
A*STAR
Prof Tan graduated with a Bachelor of Medicine and a Bachelor of Surgery from the National University of Singapore (NUS), and attained his Masters of Business Administration from Warwick University, UK. He attended the Stanford Executive Programme at the Stanford Graduate School Business. He is an affiliate member of the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Royal College of Physicians, UK.
Prof Tan’s career in A*STAR began in 2009, where he held the appointment of Programme Director of the Medical Technology initiative in SERC. His next appointment was as Director of SERC’s Strategic Initiatives, where he oversaw all SERC cluster-led R&D development. He also provided leadership for SERC’s cross-cutting programmes such as the Thematic Research Programme and the Joint Laboratories programme with the local universities and concurrently spearheaded the Healthcare and Lifestyle (H&L) Programme in A*STAR.
In October 2012, Prof Tan was promoted to Deputy Executive Director in the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC). His experience with the SERC Research Institutes (RIs) enabled BMRC to engage companies in these industry sectors holistically, cross-promoting the multi-disciplinary capabilities available at both Councils to meet the needs of companies. He helped to pave the way for growth of A*STAR’s engagements with companies in the Food & Nutrition, Medical Technology and Consumer Care sectors with leading MNCs like GE Healthcare, Nestle, Coca Cola and P&G.
Prof Tan was formerly the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Rockeby Biomed Limited. Prior to joining Rockeby, he was the Asia-Pacific Associate Regional Medical Director (Asia Regional Office) for Mead Johnson Nutritionals, a division of Bristol-Myers Squibb Company from 1997 to 2001. Prof Tan was also a former Nominated Member of Parliament of Singapore, and was on the Board of Governors of the IP Academy of Singapore.
Prof Tan is a member of the Singapore Biodesign Steering Committee, and Adjunct Professor at Nanyang Technological University’s School of Chemical and Biomedical Engineering and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine, as well as an Adjunct Professor at Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School Singapore.
Prof Tan is also a council member of the Singapore Medical Association (SMA), as well as a board director for SMA Pte Ltd and SMA Charity Pte Ltd. He is also the Board Member to the following companies: Technology Centre for Offshore and Marine, Singapore Ltd (TCOMS), Singapore Maritime Institute and Singapore National Eye Centre (SNEC)’s Ophthalmic Technologies Incubator.
