Hummingbird Bioscience Co-Founder & CEO, Piers Ingram
The Long Road to Cancer Innovation—and Why It’s Worth Taking
In biotech, translating bold ideas into real-world therapies is a long game. Scientific breakthroughs often take years — sometimes decades — to reach the clinic. For Singapore-headquartered Hummingbird Bioscience, that journey is no exception. But it’s also a story that reveals how the right ecosystem, patient capital, and strategic partnerships can turn that long road into meaningful progress.
Engineering the Future of Cancer Therapy
Founded in 2015, Hummingbird Bioscience set out to discover and develop next-generation biologics that target cancers with greater precision. Instead of relying on trial-and-error discovery, the team built a platform grounded in systems biology, data science, and antibody engineering, enabling Rational Antibody Discovery as well as multi-payload antibody-drug conjugate linker technologies.
That approach has led to several novel drug candidates in its pipeline, targeting various hard-to-treat diseases, including cancer. HMBD-001, an anti-HER3 monoclonal antibody, is the company’s flagship therapy, which is now in Phase I clinical trials across various geographies worldwide. The team announced positive Phase I clinical data at the European Society for Medical Oncology Congress in 2023.
The company also recently granted Percheron Therapeutics an exclusive global license to develop, manufacture, and commercialise HMBD-002, accelerating its path to market. HMBD-002, an anti-VISTA monoclonal antibody, recently completed Phase I trials in the United States. Results show the therapy is pharmacologically active, generally safe, and well-tolerated.
Building from Singapore, for the World
While its clinical milestones have been achieved globally, Hummingbird Bioscience’’s roots are firmly in Singapore. From the outset, Singapore offered more than a home base — it provided the infrastructure, talent pool, and scientific community needed to scale.
Today, Hummingbird Bioscience has its offices and labs in Science Park, anchoring its discovery, translational science, and clinical development activities. The company has built a team of over 80 scientists and professionals in Singapore, drawing from local institutions and the global biotech community. It sits within a broader ecosystem of more than 60 biopharma manufacturing and R&D facilities in Singapore, supported by strong intellectual property (IP) protections, regulatory clarity, and access to regional and global markets.
As CEO Piers Ingram notes, “The industry itself is highly collaborative — and that spirit is reflected here in Singapore. From research institutions to investors, there’s a real willingness to work together to advance human health.”
He adds that Singapore’s reputation as a well-governed, pro-business environment plays a critical role in attracting global investment, which is especially important in a capital-intensive field like biotech.
Most recently, Hummingbird Bioscience was named one of ten winners at the 2025 UN WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) Global Awards – a recognition of the world-class IP being generated in Singapore. Singapore’s position as a launchpad for health innovation is increasingly clear. Companies like Hummingbird Bioscience are not only starting here, they are staying, growing, and building globally-relevant IP, talent, and bringing therapies to global markets.
Capital for the Long Journey
Hummingbird Bioscience’s growth has been supported by a global syndicate of investors. What set its trajectory apart was raising capital from partners who understood the long timelines and complexity behind scaling deep science.
In 2021, the company raised US$125 million in Series C funding to support the advancement of its lead assets. Among its investors was EDBI, investment arm of SG Growth Capital, which provides growth capital and value creation support to global technology companies building in and from Singapore.
“Hummingbird Bioscience’s proprietary computational platform has generated a deep pipeline of highly differentiated antibody therapeutics aimed to serve unmet clinical needs,” says Dr. Jolene Ooi, Partner at EDBI. “The company is now demonstrating emerging and exciting clinical readouts, which is a testament to EDBI’s support for world-class scientific discoveries from Singapore that have the potential to achieve scalable and meaningful patient impact.”
More than a capital provider, EDBI works closely with companies to support local scaling, talent access, and connections to Singapore’s public-private ecosystem — all critical enablers for biotech ventures aiming to grow with both scientific depth and regional reach.
Scaling the Vision: Launch of Callio Therapeutics
In 2025, Hummingbird Bioscience’s platform took a significant step forward with the launch of Callio Therapeutics — a spinout focused on antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs), which combine the precision of biologics with the potency of targeted chemotherapies.
Callio Therapeutics is co-headquartered in Singapore and Seattle, and its US$187 million Series A included participation from EDBI. The company’s ambition is clear: to become a next-generation player in multi-payload ADCs, leveraging Hummingbird Bioscience ’s foundational science and IP.
The launch reflects how biotech ventures anchored in Singapore can scale globally — combining deep science with strong local foundations and long-term capital support.
Why the Long Road Matters
Hummingbird Bioscience’s journey affirms an often-overlooked truth in biotech: real impact takes time. The path from discovery to delivery is rarely straightforward. While regulatory and market milestones still lie ahead, its trajectory shows how science at the edge can scale from Singapore to the world when the right capital, infrastructure, and conviction come together. It’s a reminder that the difficult road is worth backing.
