AMERICAN pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly & Company on Tuesday opened a major research lab in Buona Vista that will focus on developing drugs for diseases such as cancer and diabetes.

The Lilly Singapore Centre for Drug Discovery is the largest lab of its kind here and will have 150 researchers, the company said.

The company plans to spend $150 million on the centre over the next five years.

The lab is the latest addition to the Biopolis science hub and Lilly is one of several high profile companies that have set up shop there, following a push by the Government to attract firms in the biotechnology sector, which tipped as a major growth area in the next few years.

The new facility is an expanded version of the company's old lab in Science Park, which was built in 2002 with a commitment of US$140 million.

It will study biomarkers - biological 'signatures' of cancer and other diseases. For example, raised blood glucose is a simple biomarker of diabetes.

The centre will also develop computational techniques to predict a disease's response to certain drugs. But unlike the previous lab, the research will simultaneously be used to develop new drugs.

Its staff, to be recruited locally and worldwide, will focus on cancer and metabolic diseases such as diabetes.

'Cancer is still a major unmet medical need, and diabetes is a particularly onerous problem in Asia,' said Lilly's vice president of discovery, Dr William Chin. 'We hope our contributions will help in those conditions.'

Researchers plan to focus on adult stem cells and epigenetics - the study of how the environment influences the expression of genes - in an effort to develop new drugs.

Lilly hopes to identify at least two potential medications for clinical testing within the next five years, a target that is ambitious by industry standards.