Four years after being drawn into Temasek's COVID-19 efforts, two things remain etched in her mind: the bone-deep exhaustion and an immense sense of satisfaction from having made a difference.

“We were working hours on end, day in, day out. The COVID-19 virus didn't take weekends off, so neither did we,” recalls Dr Cheryl Tan, an Assistant Vice President in Temasek’s life sciences team. Looking back, she counts those 18 months – her first with the company – among the most meaningful in her life. “Meaningful, but exhausting,” she laughs.

A doctor in Australia for six years, Cheryl returned home in April 2020 to join Temasek as an investment associate. “I was looking for a way to have a bigger impact on healthcare, not just one patient at a time,” she says. By the time she landed in the city-state, COVID-19 was raging, and Temasek had stepped up to support the country’s fight against the deadly virus.

Besides initiatives through its philanthropic entities including Temasek Foundation, Temasek had partnered with government agencies, institutes of higher learning, research bodies and medical companies to research and develop solutions that could prevent virus transmission or enhance treatment. It was also supporting several medical trials.

Cheryl hit the ground running, joining the swabbing teams when COVID-19 ran rampant in Singapore’s foreign worker dormitories, “usually in two shifts, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon”. The rest of her day was spent evaluating key global developments, helming a clinical trial, and making sense of the results.

She was struck by how Temasek was able to mobilise its network of partners and portfolio companies to design, test and develop desperately needed medical supplies, from nasal swabs to mobile ventilators.

“I realised very quickly that Temasek wasn’t your typical investment company, concerned only about numbers. It was making an impact, and because it had a strong global network, its impact was also global,” she says.

“That global impact on healthcare, that is what I want to be part of.”

Catalysing innovation

Sitting behind her desk today, the opportunity to have an impact remains, she says.

Temasek’s COVID-19 response was not created in a day. It was founded on years of investment in life sciences and promising innovations, and relationships and capacities that came together to deliver the supplies and support that Singapore, and many other countries in the region, needed. “For example, Temasek has been invested in Thermo Fisher Scientific since 2014, and when there was a severe lack of lab equipment, they helped supply the equipment directly to Singapore labs,” she recalls. “That’s just one example. It comes down to taking a long-term view on investments, building strong relationships, and keeping future potential impacts in mind. For life sciences, you see the outcome much more clearly, because you are essentially impacting generations – yours, and the ones after.”

Her first months in her “normal job”, were spent deepening her financial knowledge and becoming more familiar with Temasek’s investments across the different life sciences subsectors, from vaccines and medical services, to diagnostics and related tools. As a doctor, Cheryl had been on the receiving end of innovations filtering down from companies to the public healthcare system. “Witnessing the role that Temasek played in forming the connection between the innovators and the surgeon holding that scalpel really opened my eyes.”

When evaluating potential investments, Cheryl brings the perspective of a doctor to the table. With lives at stake, the medicine and healthcare industries tend to stick to tried-and-tested solutions, unless there is a real need for change, she says. “The mentality is always, if it ain’t broke, why fix it? So, the question is always, are you creating a test that fills a need?

“That's where I come in – to ask the right questions and make sure that we're investing in things doctors will use and that patients need.”

Beyond her “official role”, Cheryl has become the unofficial “go-to medical advisor” as well. “If there are any mishaps or accidents at work, I'm the first aid person,” she laughs.

More patients a minute

When she first moved to Singapore and Temasek, Cheryl was unsure of how the career change would pan out. “I didn’t know how I would fit in, and which direction I wanted my career to move in,” she says. The impact Temasek had during the COVID-19 pandemic, and moving forward, with its life sciences investments, has made an indelible impression. 

“I miss operating on people, the feeling you get when you save a life with your own hands,” she says, “but this is on a whole different scale. You don’t get the immediate gratification, but you reach a lot more people and help create a lot more impact over the same period of time.”

“I can’t say that one is better than the other, you need both cogs for the wheel to turn, but for me, the chance to help more patients per minute, that’s where I want to be.”