A – Z Guide to Singapore Clinical Data Access

Stop Flying Blind in Asia: Access Multi-ethnic Singapore Clinical Data In-Place—No Data Movement

Singapore clinical data is a vital asset for global biomedical research, but access remains a hurdle. For organizations looking to tap into high-quality datasets from Asia’s most advanced healthcare system, understanding the landscape is key.

Quick Access Guide:

1. Regulatory Approval: Steer HSA (Health Sciences Authority) and MOH (Ministry of Health) requirements for data access.
2. National Platforms: Leverage TRUST (Trusted Research and Real World Data Utilisation) for anonymized health data.
3. Research Partnerships: Partner with institutions like SingHealth to access specialized datasets and global networks.
4. Data Types: Access clinical records, genomics, imaging, and real-world evidence.
5. Timeline: Expect defined regulatory review windows and frequent data repository updates.

Singapore is Asia’s premier hub for clinical data, offering a multi-ethnic population, world-class hospitals, and government-backed data initiatives. However, data remains siloed, regulations can be complex, and few organizations have the federated infrastructure to analyze data securely in placewithout moving it.

With nearly 30% of deaths in Singapore being cardiovascular-related, the research potential is immense. The SingHealth COPD and Asthma Data Mart alone covers over 36,000 patients. Despite this, Asian real-world data is critically under-represented in global research, even as Singapore’s genomics market grows.

I’m Maria Chatzou Dunford, CEO of Lifebit. We build federated platforms for secure, compliant access to Singapore clinical data without data movement, enabling real-time pharmacovigilance and AI-powered evidence generation. My 15+ years in genomics have convinced me that the future of precision medicine hinges on solving this exact problem: making diverse data accessible while ensuring privacy.

Singapore clinical data terms made easy:

• AI healthcare Singapore
• AI healthcare solutions

Beat HSA/MOH Delays: Choose CTA vs CTN vs CTC Correctly and Keep Trials on Schedule

Navigating Singapore’s regulatory landscape for Singapore clinical data can seem complex, but it’s one of the most efficient in Asia once you understand the key players and processes.

The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) and the Ministry of Health (MOH) are your primary partners. While their roles are complementary, they are distinct. The HSA is the national regulator for health products, focusing on the safety, efficacy, and quality of drugs and medical devices used in clinical trials. The MOH, on the other hand, governs the broader healthcare system, public health, and research ethics, primarily through the Human Biomedical Research Act (HBRA).

The HSA offers remarkable transparency, with detailed statistics on approval timelines and therapeutic areas available on its HSA Clinical Trials Statistics page, which is essential for planning your research.

To further bolster data integrity, Singapore is undertaking a nationwide audit of clinical data and documentation across 20 hospitals, running through Q3 2026. This initiative, as reported when Singapore audits clinical data, is a proactive measure to harmonize data practices. By standardizing clinical coding (e.g., ICD-10, SNOMED CT) and documentation templates, Singapore is building a high-fidelity data foundation. For researchers, this means the resulting RWD will be more consistent, reliable, and ready for large-scale analytics, reducing the time and cost of data cleaning and reinforcing the country’s commitment to a trustworthy national Electronic Health Record (EHR).

Submission Routes and Key Regulations—What You Must Know

To access Singapore clinical data for interventional research, you must follow the correct regulatory pathway defined by key legislation. Your submission route depends on your trial’s risk and product type.

• Key Legislation: The Health Products Act (HPA) is the primary law governing trials of therapeutic products and medical devices, defining the CTA and CTN pathways. The Medicines Act covers medicinal products not under the HPA, such as traditional medicines, which fall under the CTC route. Critically, the Human Biomedical Research Act (HBRA) provides the overarching ethical framework for all human biomedical research, mandating IRB review and governing the use of health information.
• Clinical Trial Authorisation (CTA): This route is for higher-risk trials, such as those involving new chemical entities, biologics, first-in-human studies, or novel uses of existing drugs. The HSA’s efficient process includes a 30-working-day review for the first cycle, making it one of the fastest in the region.
• Clinical Trial Notification (CTN): This is a streamlined notification process for lower-risk trials. Examples include studies of locally registered products used within their approved indications or certain post-market surveillance studies. The trial can commence once the HSA is notified, assuming IRB approval is secured.
• Clinical Trial Certificate (CTC): This route is for trials of medicinal products not classified as “therapeutic products” under the HPA, such as some traditional or homeopathic medicines.

Identifying the correct pathway early is crucial to avoid delays and ensure a smooth start to your research.

Managing Clinical Research Materials (CRMs) Without Delays

Managing Clinical Research Materials (CRMs)—any health product used in research—is another critical step. The Health Products (Clinical Research Materials) Regulations require notification before importing or supplying CRMs. This includes meticulous tracking of every product from import to disposal, maintaining temperature logs for sensitive biologics, accounting for every dose, and documenting the destruction of unused materials. Additional licenses are needed for controlled substances. Proper CRM management ensures your trials run smoothly and generate high-quality Singapore clinical data without regulatory hiccups.

TRUST in 3 Steps: Get IRB-Approved Access and Analyze Singapore Data Without Moving It

Singapore clinical data is valuable, but access is everything. The nation has built a sophisticated infrastructure to connect researchers with data securely and efficiently. Instead of navigating requests across multiple institutions, you can use centralized platforms that handle standardization, anonymization, and governance, accelerating your research timeline.

Singapore’s National Data Exchange: Secure, Scalable, and Ready for Research

Singapore’s flagship initiative is the Trusted Research and Real World Data Utilisation (TRUST) platform. This national data exchange unites health research and real-world data under a secure, governed umbrella. TRUST provides access to an unparalleled breadth of data, including:

• Clinical Data: Structured EHR data such as diagnoses, procedures, lab results, and prescriptions from public hospitals.
• Genomic Data: Whole-genome sequencing data from Singapore’s National Precision Medicine (NPM) program, including the landmark SG100K project.
• Registry Data: Longitudinal data from national sources like the Singapore Cancer Registry and mortality registries.
• Cohort Data: Rich datasets from long-term studies like Growing Up in Singapore Towards healthy Outcomes (GUSTO), which tracks mothers and children from birth.

Access follows a structured process: register as a TRUST member, submit a data request via the detailed data catalogue, and obtain relevant Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval. Once approved, you gain access to a secure operating environment—a “data clean room” or Trusted Research Environment (TRE). Here, the de-identified dataset is provisioned on a secure virtual desktop. You cannot download raw data. The environment comes pre-loaded with analytical tools like Python, R, Hail, and PLINK, allowing you to run analyses without moving the data. All outputs are vetted to maintain privacy before export. You can learn more at trustplatform.sg.

Institutional Collaborations: Multiply Your Data Sources, Multiply Your Impact

Beyond TRUST, direct institutional collaborations offer access to specialized datasets and expertise. Singapore’s healthcare is organized into three clusters, with Singapore Health Services (SingHealth) and the National University Health System (NUHS) being the two largest. Collaborating with these clusters, which have their own robust research infrastructures, provides a comprehensive view of the national healthcare landscape.

These partnerships have given rise to powerful, disease-specific data marts:

• Cardiovascular Research: The National Cardiovascular Data Repository is a prime example of innovation. It uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) to extract structured variables (e.g., ejection fraction) from unstructured text in echocardiogram reports, turning previously unusable information into a queryable resource for studying Asian cardiovascular phenotypes.
• Infectious Disease Preparedness: The PREPARE program was instrumental during the COVID-19 pandemic. By linking clinical, virological, and immunological data from hospitals nationwide, it enabled researchers to rapidly characterize the disease, monitor viral variants, and evaluate vaccine effectiveness in the local population.
• Respiratory Disease: Data marts for COPD and asthma provide near real-time data from EHRs, enabling continuous monitoring and research into patient outcomes.

As Professor Yeo Khung Keong of SingHealth notes, such data partnerships are key to their vision to “Define Tomorrow’s Medicine.” These collaborations create a connected ecosystem where secure data access and federated analytics accelerate the timeline from research question to clinical breakthrough.

RWD That Delivers: 36,407-Patient COPD/Asthma Dataset—Weekly Updates, Ready Now

Powerful medical breakthroughs often come not from controlled trials, but from Real-World Data (RWD)—the information generated daily in healthcare systems. When analyzed, this data produces Real-World Evidence (RWE), offering insights into how treatments perform in everyday clinical practice.

In Singapore, RWD and RWE are essential tools. The Singapore clinical data ecosystem captures patient journeys across therapeutic areas like oncology and cardiovascular disease, providing a dynamic view that traditional trials cannot match.

Real-World Data in Singapore: How to Get It and What It Can Do for You

Singapore’s healthcare system generates vast amounts of RWD daily. A prime example is the SingHealth COPD and Asthma Data Mart (SCDM), a collaboration between SingHealth, Duke-NUS, and GSK. This data mart contains 199 data elements on over 36,407 patients and updates weekly. The data elements are highly granular, including not just diagnoses but lung function test results (spirometry), exacerbation history, prescribed inhaler types, and smoking status. Automated ETL pipelines pull this data from systems like the SingHealth Electronic Health Intelligence System (eHints), ensuring efficient delivery of high-quality Singapore clinical data for research.

Such public-private partnerships accelerate insights across many fields:

• Oncology: By linking data from the Singapore Cancer Registry with EHRs, researchers can study treatment effectiveness and outcomes. This RWE can compare the real-world performance of different chemotherapy regimens, providing crucial evidence for local clinical practice guidelines.
• Pharmacovigilance: RWD enables active safety surveillance. Instead of passive reporting, automated systems can scan near real-time EHR data for potential safety signals, like an unexpected lab abnormality in patients starting a new drug, allowing for much faster detection of adverse events.

Accessing Diverse Singapore Clinical Data for Research Breakthroughs

Singapore clinical data stands out globally for its diversity. The multi-ethnic population—Chinese, Malay, Indian, and others—creates a unique opportunity for genomic and longitudinal research that cannot be replicated elsewhere.

This diversity is critical because Asian populations have been dramatically under-represented in global life science research. A key example is in pharmacogenomics. The gene CYP2C19, which metabolizes common drugs like the antiplatelet agent clopidogrel, has “loss-of-function” variants that are far more prevalent in East Asian populations (up to 15%) than in Caucasians (~2-5%). Patients with these variants are poor metabolizers and face a higher risk of blood clots. Research using Singaporean data helps quantify this risk across its ethnic groups, supporting ethnicity-specific guidelines—a core goal of Singapore’s National Precision Medicine (NPM) strategy.

The TRUST platform directly supports this by offering access to genomic and longitudinal cohorts alongside clinical data. When institutions like SingHealth join global data networks, they address this fundamental gap, enabling comparative studies across millions of patient lives and hundreds of thousands of genomic profiles. International collaborations, such as health data partnerships between the UK and Singapore, are flourishing, enabling validation studies and cross-population comparisons that strengthen global health knowledge and help build a more equitable future for precision medicine.

Stop Risky Centralization: Run Federated AI Where Data Lives for Faster, Compliant Insights

Singapore’s clinical data infrastructure is remarkable, but challenges remain in using it effectively. Obstacles like data quality and silos still exist. The good news is that Singapore is actively solving these problems, reshaping the future of medical research.

Overcoming Data Management ProblemsAnd Why Most Fail

Most data initiatives fail on fundamentals like data quality issues, institutional silos, and inconsistent standards. Singapore recognized this early, which is why the Ministry of Health commissioned a comprehensive audit of clinical coding and documentation quality across 20 hospitals. As reported when Singapore audits clinical data, this systematic examination aims to identify and fix data quality breakdowns.

This commitment to getting the fundamentals right is crucial. Data silos and varying documentation standards further fragment information, slowing research. Singapore’s push for a national EHR and interoperability standards shows its dedication to solving these core problems.

The Future is Federated: AI, Secure Access, and Global Collaboration

The future of using Singapore clinical data isn’t moving it to centralized warehousesan outdated and risky approach. Instead, the future is federated: bringing the analysis to the data.

Federated AI platforms allow algorithms to run on data where it residesin hospitals, research databases, and genomic repositorieswithout moving it. This solves multiple problems at once:

• Privacy & Sovereignty: Sensitive patient data never leaves its secure environment.
• Compliance: Data doesn’t cross jurisdictional boundaries, simplifying regulatory adherence.
• Speed: Insights are generated faster without lengthy data transfer processes.

Secure data access through technologies like Trusted Research Environments is fundamental to this model. Real-time analytics becomes possible, enabling faster pharmacovigilance and adaptive clinical trials. Singapore’s participation in global data networks demonstrates how federated approaches enable international collaboration. Institutions can join a global research ecosystem, running analyses across millions of patient records while maintaining complete sovereignty over their data.

The Human Biomedical Research Act and the TRUST platform provide the framework and infrastructure to make this federated future a reality. Singapore is proving that you don’t have to choose between data security and research velocity. With a federated approach, you can have both.

New to Singapore Clinical Data? Read This First to Avoid Weeks of Delay

If you’re navigating Singapore clinical data access for the first time, you’re probably wondering where to start. Here are answers to the most common questions.

What are the main regulatory bodies for clinical trials in Singapore?

The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) regulates most interventional trials involving therapeutic products. The Ministry of Health (MOH) oversees research under the Human Biomedical Research Act, including observational studies and certain cell therapy trials. Understanding which body oversees your research is the first step to efficient data access.

What is Singapores national data exchange platform?

It’s TRUST (Trusted Research and Real World Data Utilisation). This national platform facilitates the secure sharing of anonymized health research and real-world data. It provides researchers with access to population, clinical, and genomic data within a secure environment equipped with analytical tools, allowing analysis without data movement.

Why is clinical data from Singapore important for global research?

Singapore clinical data helps fix the critical under-representation of Asian populations in global research. Its multi-ethnic population provides invaluable insights into how diseases and treatments differ across genetic backgrounds. For example, heart failure often presents differently in Asian patients. Using this data helps create diagnostics and treatments that are effective for a more diverse global population, fulfilling the promise of precision medicine.

Stop Moving Data: Analyze Singapore Clinical Data Where It Lives for Faster, Safer Results

We’ve seen how Singapore clinical data offers a unique advantage. It’s a complete ecosystem combining world-class regulation, advanced infrastructure, and a collaborative spirit.

Singapore provides transparent regulatory pathways, data quality audits, and the national TRUST platform. Its diverse population offers genomic insights crucial for making precision medicine truly global.

But access is only half the battle. The game-changer is how you analyze the data. Traditional data movement creates bottlenecks and risks; the future is federated.

Federated platforms allow you to analyze Singapore clinical data where it livessecurely, compliantly, and in real-time. At Lifebit, our platform provides Trusted Research Environments, federated AI, and real-time analytics via our R.E.A.L. layer to solve these challenges. Singapore’s advantage lies in making its data truly accessible through technology.

Ready to see how federated technology can transform your access to Singapore clinical data? Explore a federated platform for biomedical data and learn how we help researchers turn data challenges into breakthroughs.