The Growing Ecosystem of Single-Cell Sequencing Services in Asia-Pacific

Single-cell sequencing (SCS) has fundamentally reshaped biological research, shifting from bulk tissue analysis to high-resolution interrogation of individual cellular states.

Life Sciences Review | Monday, April 07, 2025

Single-cell sequencing (SCS) has fundamentally reshaped biological research, shifting from bulk tissue analysis to high-resolution interrogation of individual cellular states. As of early 2025, the APAC SCS service market is characterized by increasing accessibility, technological sophistication, diverse applications, and significant regional investment, positioning it as a crucial hub for life sciences innovation.

The APAC single-cell sequencing service market is escalating government and private investment in biomedical research, precision medicine initiatives, and biotechnology across numerous APAC nations, creating substantial demand. Governments recognize the potential of genomics, including SCS, to address national health priorities, particularly concerning prevalent regional diseases like specific cancers, infectious diseases, and metabolic disorders.

Stay ahead of the industry with exclusive feature stories on the top companies, expert insights and the latest news delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe today.

APAC's pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries are increasingly incorporating SCS into their drug discovery and development pipelines. Understanding drug effects at the cellular level, identifying rare cell populations responsible for resistance, or characterizing immune responses with high granularity is invaluable. This drives demand for reliable, high-quality SCS services supporting preclinical research and translational studies.

Further, academic researchers increasingly realize that while SCS technology is powerful, establishing and maintaining in-house capabilities can be resource-intensive. This includes significant capital expenditure for instrumentation, the need for highly specialized personnel for wet-lab protocols and complex bioinformatics analysis, and the continuous requirement to stay updated with rapidly evolving techniques. Consequently, outsourcing SCS projects to specialized service providers has become an increasingly attractive and efficient option for many research groups, universities, and institutes across APAC.

Geographic Distribution and Regional Hubs

Countries like China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and Australia represent established hubs with a high concentration of research institutions, significant government funding, and a mature ecosystem of service providers. These nations often lead in adopting the latest SCS technologies and multi-omics approaches.

Simultaneously, other countries, including India, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Thailand, are witnessing rapid growth in their biotechnology sectors and research capabilities. Demand for SCS services is increasing significantly in these regions, driven by expanding research programs and a growing number of researchers recognizing the power of technology. Service providers are emerging or expanding their reach to cater to this burgeoning demand. Collaborations between established international service entities and local research groups are becoming more common.

The Service Ecosystem

The service ecosystem in the region consists of a diverse mix of providers, including academic core facilities, contract research organizations (CROs), and specialized genomics service providers, each catering to distinct segments of the scientific and industrial communities. Academic core facilities within leading universities and research institutes primarily support internal researchers. However, some also extend their services to external collaborators or clients, providing access to advanced sequencing technologies and expertise.

CROs with genomics capabilities increasingly integrate comprehensive SCS workflows into their service portfolios. These organizations primarily serve the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries, leveraging their scale and expertise to deliver high-quality sequencing solutions tailored to drug development and biomedical research.

Additionally, numerous small to medium-sized enterprises specialize exclusively in genomics and bioinformatics services, with SCS as a core offering. These providers often offer greater flexibility and customized solutions, catering to the specific needs of researchers and institutions requiring tailored sequencing approaches.

Service models vary from fully integrated, end-to-end solutions—covering sample receipt, sequencing, and final data analysis—to modular offerings that allow researchers to select specific steps. These may include standalone services such as library preparation, sequencing, or bioinformatics analysis of pre-existing data. Furthermore, many providers offer consultation services to assist researchers with experimental design, ensuring optimal study outcomes.

The Critical Role of Bioinformatics

APAC service providers invest heavily in bioinformatics capabilities, employing skilled bioinformaticians and data scientists. Standard analysis pipelines typically include read alignment, quality control, cell filtering, dimensionality reduction (t-SNE, UMAP), clustering, differential gene expression analysis, and cell type annotation. Increasingly, advanced services offer trajectory inference, RNA velocity, multi-omics data integration, and customized analytical solutions tailored to specific research questions. Cloud computing platforms for data storage, processing, and sharing are becoming standard practice.

As the field matures, there is a growing emphasis within the APAC service market on standardization, quality control, and reproducibility. Reputable service providers implement rigorous QC checks at various stages – sample intake, library preparation, sequencing, and data analysis. Adherence to best practices and the ability to handle large datasets securely and efficiently are key differentiators for service providers. Robust data management systems and clear reporting structures are essential for delivering reliable and interpretable client results.

Investment and Collaboration Landscape

APAC government initiatives often include specific funding calls supporting genomics and single-cell research, indirectly boosting the service market. Public-private partnerships are emerging, linking academic expertise with the operational capabilities of service providers. Furthermore, collaborations between research institutions within APAC and internationally are common, often leveraging the specialized SCS services available in the region. Venture capital interest in biotechnology, including specialized service providers with unique technological or analytical capabilities, also contributes to the sector's dynamism.

Driven by significant research investment, pharmaceutical industry demand, and the technology's inherent power, service providers offer increasingly sophisticated capabilities, from high-throughput transcriptomics to complex multi-omics and integrated spatial analysis. Established hubs are leading innovation, and emerging markets are showing substantial growth, fueled by strong bioinformatics support and a focus on quality. The APAC SCS service market is undeniably a critical enabler of cutting-edge life science discovery, poised to make even more significant contributions in the years to come.

More in News

Choosing Microbial CDMO without Losing Process Control

Commercial biologics programs rarely stall because a sponsor failed to reserve manufacturing capacity. Delays are more likely to appear when fermentation assumptions, purification readiness, assay design and batch documentation fall out of sync. Microbial manufacturing is particularly sensitive at this stage. A process that performs well during development can quickly lose momentum if harvest conditions are not fully understood or impurity clearance has not been aligned with the characteristics of the molecule. For executives evaluating a CDMO, manufacturing capacity is important, but maintaining process continuity is even more critical. The strongest CDMOs do not treat development and manufacturing as separate stages handed from one department to another. Instead, they manage them as a continuous, controlled process. Analytical strategy is developed while the process is still being refined, manufacturing constraints are identified before GMP transfer, sampling routes are planned early and documentation evolves alongside the program instead of being rebuilt for clinical or commercial manufacturing. This goes beyond administrative efficiency. It is an important part of controlling risk. Changes to analytical methods or batch records late in development can trigger comparability work and make regulatory review more challenging. "Richter BioLogics aligns well with the priorities many sponsors look for when they need microbial expertise backed by GMP manufacturing." A thorough evaluation should also examine how fermentation and purification work together in practice. Separate upstream and downstream suites can offer sponsors greater flexibility, but only if the transition between them is carefully managed. Having real-time harvest data, purification teams ready to receive material, buffers prepared in advance and clear sample routes in place helps avoid the disruption that often occurs between the bioreactor and the first chromatography step. The same level of scrutiny applies to plasmid DNA manufacturing, where supercoiled content, host-cell impurities, endotoxin burden and unwanted isoforms all influence whether the final material is suitable for its intended use. Quality systems should be assessed through evidence, not broad assurances. Every GMP manufacturing program generates extensive documentation, and that record should remain clear and consistent from raw material receipt and media preparation through in-process testing, deviations, investigations and final product release. Buyers should look at whether quality control is integrated closely enough with manufacturing to detect early process signals. They should also consider whether the CDMO has the in-house analytical expertise needed for release testing, stability studies, troubleshooting and comparability work, instead of relying on outside laboratories whenever challenges arise. "For sponsors working to demanding timelines, Richter BioLogics brings together specialized microbial expertise, disciplined documentation, in-house analytical testing and direct project coordination." Scale also deserves careful consideration. A larger facility does not automatically make decisions faster, and a smaller specialist may not have enough built-in redundancy. A better question is whether the manufacturing model gives sponsors direct access to scientific expertise while providing the GMP infrastructure needed to support late-stage development and commercial production. That balance is especially important in microbial biologics. Therapeutic proteins, antibody fragments, bacterial vaccines and plasmid DNA each bring different manufacturing demands, so buyers should look beyond broad claims about capacity and examine the depth of process and analytical expertise behind them. Richter BioLogics aligns well with the priorities many sponsors look for when they need microbial expertise backed by GMP manufacturing. Its capabilities span process development, analytical development, microbial GMP manufacturing and plasmid DNA production, including the pART plasmid platform. The company operates independent upstream and downstream processing lines across two multiproduct GMP facilities, with quality control integrated throughout manufacturing campaigns. It supports therapeutic proteins, VHH or Nanobody formats, bacterial vaccines and plasmid DNA. A long GMP manufacturing track record, recent capacity expansion, in-house analytical capabilities and a 2026 FDA inspection with zero observations provide added confidence. For sponsors working to demanding timelines, Richter BioLogics brings together specialized microbial expertise, disciplined documentation, in-house analytical testing and direct project coordination. ...Read more

Growing Concerns About Data Continuity in Biopharma Evidence Generation

One of the common concerns within biopharma is not a matter of generating evidence per se. What makes it even harder is the possibility of sustaining a consistent stream of information through several studies or regulations over prolonged periods of time. As such, the issue of data continuity gains more importance as evidence generation software solutions are currently evaluated by potential buyers. Evidentiary initiatives are never limited to the sole scope of their objectives. Information retrieved once can become relevant several times over the life cycle of a particular product. Researchers may need to re-examine certain findings, compare results of treatment between different periods of time or study data acquired within separate research processes. It becomes especially complicated if there are no consistent information sources within an organization. Such considerations begin to impact the choice of evidence generation software. While the tools themselves are hardly ever used to produce any scientific insights directly, their contribution lies in facilitating further evidence processing and management. The problem becomes apparent as evidentiary research programs move past their initial objectives. It is rare for evidence generation initiatives to have a definite deadline or goal. Several years may pass between the start of the research process and its end, which means that there can be many staff changes, reconsiderations of previous assumptions or emergence of new questions. When information proves hard to find or analyze, the whole process can be slowed down significantly. The amount of effort spent tracking documents, verifying the integrity of information and understanding research history may prove to be considerable. At the same time, these aspects might not become a major focus of technology evaluation. Procurement conversations about evidence generation software solutions are shifting in this direction. Buyers' attention moves from operational effectiveness to information sustainability as evidence programs grow more extensive and complex. They are starting to see evidence generation software platforms as tools for sustaining knowledge over time rather than project management resources. This brings a change to the list of priorities for software developers. Features aimed at optimizing research processes are essential but buyers become concerned with data preservation as well. As such, information continuity becomes part of a solution's institutional memory function rather than just another aspect of project management. While data continuity may not be as prominent as some new trends in evidence analytics, it addresses a pressing problem faced by many biopharma teams. Evidence generation projects tend to outlast their budgets, original objectives or even the members of a team conducting research. For biopharma companies investing in such tools, the problem is shifting from acquiring new information to keeping existing data context-sensitive. ...Read more

Inventus welcomes senior figure from Google as a board adviser

Inventus, the only company in the world dedicated to creating purpose-built devices and technology solutions exclusively for clinical trials, has made a key appointment from Google to its advisory board. Mark Bennett, a Vice President at Google, will be working with Inventus in the capacity of Board Adviser. Bennett has more than two decades in senior leadership roles at companies including Microsoft, Sainsbury’s & Tesco. He is currently Google’s Vice President of Knowledge & Information Partnerships for the EMEA region, leading product partnerships for Search, Gemini, Maps, Commerce, Research and Ads . Bennett has spent more than 10 years in Google Partnerships across a range of teams including Knowledge & Information, Android, Google Hardware and Google Play. Bennett’s previous roles at Google include VP for Platforms and Devices Partnerships for the APAC region and Vice President for Google’s Global Android Partnerships. Bennett said he was excited to support Inventus - known for its innovative and industry leading clinical trial solutions - to help map out its next phase of growth. He said: “I’m delighted to be advising the board at Inventus. I’m impressed by the growth and strategy of the company and am looking forward to helping them accelerate that trajectory. I’ve been intrigued by the biomedical sciences sector for some time and seen how AI is an increasingly important factor for the industry. I’ll be advising Inventus on how technology can be harnessed to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness and overall impact of clinical trials, helping bring better treatments to patients faster.” Bennett is the second key appointment from Google at Inventus in recent months. Earlier this year, Jon French, Managing Director of Google’s Android Global Business, was appointed Group Managing Director at Inventus. Commenting on Bennett’s new role, French said: “I could not be more excited to welcome Mark to the Inventus advisory board. I know personally what an incredible leader Mark is. His expertise and perspective will be tremendous assets to our business. “As Inventus enters its next phase of growth, his experience, judgement and strategic vision will help shape our direction and strengthen our ability to achieve our long-term ambitions. At the heart of everything we do at Inventus is a commitment to help bring life-changing treatments to patients faster.” Bennett is the second appointment to the Inventus advisory board – he joins Stacy Hurt, chief patient officer at Parexel, who was welcomed as a Board Adviser in the summer. Parexel is a global clinical development partner. Hurt leads efforts to integrate patient perspectives into drug development and healthcare at their earliest stages. Hurt has more than two decades of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical space. She has worked for GlaxoSmithKline, Transdermal Therapeutics and Colon Cancer Coalition across sales, training and development and has over a decade of experience in patient advocacy. Steve Sanghera, CEO and Co-Founder of Inventus, said: “I am delighted to announce the exceptional appointment of Mark Bennett to the Inventus Board. Mark brings world class technology leadership and knowledge which will be instrumental in guiding our journey as we navigate how AI will shape and influence clinical trials. Mark’s appointment reflects the continuous growth of Inventus within the industry. Together with Stacy, the expertise that we now have at Inventus also demonstrates our commitment to building a business that focuses on technological excellence and the patients which sit at the heart of a clinical trial.” ...Read more

Inventus welcomes senior figure from Google as a board adviser

Specials

The Growing Ecosystem of Single-Cell Sequencing Services in Asia-Pacific

Single-cell sequencing (SCS) has fundamentally reshaped biological research, shifting from bulk tissue analysis to high-resolution interrogation of individual cellular states.