By Lynn Seah

ICM managing director Koe Khoon Poh's journey as an entrepreneur has often mirrored Singapore's growth.

When the republic was mainly a trading hub, he started a business importing and exporting pharmaceuticals in 1970. Then as Singapore moved into manufacturing, he set up factories to make, first, veterinary products, and later, pharmaceuticals.

For pharmaceuticals, he began as a contract manufacturer - hence the name of his company, Integrated Contract Manufacturing (ICM). But now, 80 per cent of production is of its own ICM Pharma brand products.

Many of these will be familiar to heartlanders as ICM is a major supplier of minor ailment treatments to government hospitals and polyclinics. Mr Koe, a pharmacy graduate from the University of Singapore, had leveraged on the experience from his one-year pupilage at Singapore General Hospital in the 1960s, to create the kind of products the public sector wanted.

And as ICM Pharma gained visibility in the public sector, the private sector took notice.

Now, sales to the private sector are practically on par with institutional sales to the Government. There is also growing interest from overseas. ICM Pharma products are now sold in countries like Malaysia, Bangladesh and Papua New Guinea.

Going strong even after 38 years, the business has an annual turnover of US$10 million (S$1.47 million). During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, ICM was severely buffeted but it buckled down, shrank operations, cut salaries, and survived.

The 65-year-old Chinese-educated Mr Koe is also a firm believer in wei ji (which roughly means that in danger lies opportunity).

'When a situation becomes critical, there lies opportunity,' he explains. So when Sars hit and business ground to a halt for others, the firm focused on disinfectants and today, it is still benefiting from inroads made during that time.

True to character, Mr Koe sees a silver lining in the current financial meltdown as belt-tightening leads people to his products, which cost less than imported brands.

Mr Koe is a former president of the Pharmaceutical Society of Singapore and president-elect of the Singapore Medical Alumni Association. On being one of the top entrepreneurs in the Entrepreneur of the Year Award, he says: 'We took part not for the sake of winning, but for the sake of learning, to benchmark ourselves to other business players in different fields.'

This article was first published in The Straits Times on October 22, 2008.