Demographic drivers, rising healthcare spending, research-focused clusters and strong government support are providing growth opportunities for Asia Pacific life sciences and R&D platform Vita Partners, attendees learned at Mingtiandi’s 2025 Singapore Forum on Tuesday.
Vita has more than S$2 billion ($1.5 billion) in assets under management in the life sciences and R&D space in Japan and Singapore after being set up last July as a joint venture of US private equity giant Warburg Pincus and Australian developer and fund manager Lendlease. In December the JV hired Bart Price, a senior executive from the Abu Dhabi Investment Council, to lead the budding business.
In a spotlight interview at the Yardi-sponsored forum, Price and Warburg Pincus principal Tag Yuxiang sat down with Mingtiandi founder Michael Cole to discuss their vision for the platform and the factors making APAC a rich environment for life sciences projects. They were joined on stage at the Conrad Singapore Marina Bay by CBRE consultant Rimon Ambarchi, who advised a Blackstone and Soilbuild partnership on its sale of a $1.2 billion Singapore portfolio to Vita last year.
“We’re looking at growing the business across new markets in Asia Pacific, which has been very busy,” Price told the audience of over 250 executives in Singapore. “And then we have had very active discussions with capital partners across the market, and there’s a lot of interest in the space, which has been very pleasing.”
Taking Tariffs in Stride
Tuesday’s event unfolded against the backdrop of a tentative deal on tariffs reached between US and Chinese negotiators, sparking hopes for a de-escalation of what the Wall Street Journal has called “the dumbest trade war in history”.
Vita Partners CEO Bart Price and Warburg Pincus principal Tag Yuxiang on stage at the event
The tariff threat has heightened the need to diversify supply chains and bring together R&D, manufacturing and logistics within countries, according to Price, who drew a link with the trend of governments offering incentives and companies looking to avoid supply chain disruption to make pharmaceuticals, medical devices and undertake R&D within home markets. He highlighted that policymakers increasingly see life science and R&D as critical infrastructure within a country.
“So tariffs are a big impact, but we actually see positives for our business in actively working with our clients to provide solutions for their real estate requirements as they diversify their supply chain and reduce risks within their business,” Price said.
Warburg’s Yuxiang noted that in Japan, where nearly a third of the population is aged 65 or older, healthcare spending has climbed to more than 10 percent of the country’s GDP, driving demand for medical research and innovation.
“Demographic shifts, such as ageing populations and rising middle-class expectations, are increasing healthcare demand. We also see similar trends in Singapore, South Korea and China,” said Yuxiang, who developed the Vita venture from its early stages. “And as a result, governments are investing heavily in healthcare infrastructure, not just into hospitals, clinics, aged care facilities, but also upstream into labs, into manufacturing facilities and R&D.”
One such research facility is Leaf Minatomirai, a Yokohama mall which was acquired on behalf of a Vita-managed fund before being transformed into a 24,206 square metre (260,551 square foot) R&D workplace. The property served as the seed asset for Vita, which announced the property’s divestment in March.
Strength in Clusters
The successful exit from Leaf Minatomirai leaves Vita with an investment portfolio of seven assets, including the Solaris building in Singapore’s One North research cluster. CBRE’s Ambarchi pointed to such clusters as a key element in attracting foreign investment and bolstering a life sciences ecosystem that extends upward to manufacturing at the city-state’s Tuas Biomedical Park.
“Biomedical Park is really important because it’s the hardware,” Ambarchi said. “And you have full-scale biomedical plants. They’re making medicine and medical devices. All the big boys are out there — GSK, Pfizer, Novartis — and that creates a lot of downstream into our light industrial buildings, into labs.”
None of which would be possible, he added, without the support of the Singapore government and strong partners: “You need the park, you need the infrastructure. So without those critical components, you can’t do anything.”
A Forum in Pictures
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