BREDIS Healthcare Establishes Global Joint Research Center with National University of Singapore (NUS)

BREDIS Healthcare announced in March that it has established a global joint research center with the National University of Singapore (NUS). Through this partnership, BREDIS Healthcare will establish the "Bredis Research Center for Aging and Integrated Neuroscience (BRAIN)" within NUS, creating a key hub for global research and commercialization. BRAIN aims to be a platform-style research center that studies aging and neuroscience in an integrated manner, combining biomarker, clinical, and lifelog data to connect research directly to clinical application and commercialization. NUS is a leading Asian research university that consistently ranks among the world's top institutions in global rankings, with world-class competitiveness in biomedical science and clinical research. In particular, in the field of dementia and neurodegenerative disease research, NUS has built one of Asia's largest dementia cohort studies and long-term clinical follow-up datasets, centered around the Memory Aging & Cognition Centre (MACC) under the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. With research infrastructure integrating brain imaging, blood biomarkers, cognitive assessments, and clinical data, MACC is regarded as a global research hub capable of validating technologies based on real patient data. The joint research center is being established in partnership with Professor Christopher Chen, Director of MACC and former President of the Asian Society Against Dementia (ASAD). Professor Chen is a leading clinical researcher in international dementia research, having led numerous international multi-center studies in vascular cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's disease. He plays a central role in the global dementia research network, spearheading large-scale cohort-based biomarker research, and holds significant academic influence in the field of blood-based dementia diagnostics. The establishment of this research center is also significant as a case of a Korean bio-healthcare company setting up its own research center within one of Asia's top universities. BREDIS Healthcare will secure a dedicated research space and joint research framework within NUS, establishing a structure that allows it to directly conduct technology development and commercialization based on global clinical data. At the BRAIN research center, BREDIS Healthcare plans to progressively carry out: development of diagnostic kits based on ultrasensitive immunoassays; quantitative analysis of blood-based biomarkers; discovery of novel biomarkers through proteomics; integrated analysis of multimodal data (clinical, biomarker, and lifelog); and technology validation based on global clinical cohorts. BREDIS Healthcare has established world-class technical capabilities and operational experience in ultrasensitive immunoassay-based blood biomarker testing, providing analysis services for key neurodegenerative disease biomarkers — including pTau217, GFAP, and NfL — to research institutions and pharmaceutical companies in Korea and abroad. The company has also built an integrated platform connecting data interpretation to clinical application, based on multi-omics capabilities including proteomic and genomic analysis. In 2025, its third year since founding, the company achieved profitability at both the operating and net income levels, demonstrating its technology-based commercialization capabilities. It also became the first in the world to complete manufacturing registration for an ultrasensitive digital immunoassay device as a medical device, significantly expanding its potential for clinical application. In addition, the company completed development of Korea's first proprietary pTau217 reagent, secured its clinical performance, and is currently pursuing regulatory approval. The company expects this collaboration with NUS to serve as a strategic springboard for validating its technical capabilities and commercialization experience in a global clinical setting, and for expanding — through joint research — into the commercialization of diagnostic kits and analysis platforms. "Singapore is a biotech hub in the Asia-Pacific region where global pharmaceutical companies and research institutions are concentrated, and establishing a research center within NUS marks the full-scale starting point for our entry into the global market, including Southeast Asia," said Hyundoo Hwang, CEO of BREDIS Healthcare. "The BRAIN research center is a global strategic project that combines Asia's top-tier research infrastructure with BREDIS Healthcare's ultrasensitive biomarker technology." He added, "We aim to build a global standard model that connects real patient-based clinical data validation to diagnostic kit development and commercialization, and to lead the paradigm of blood-based early diagnosis in the global market, starting with Asia."