The Firm Season 2 kicks off its first episode today with 14 contestants vying for RM100,00 worth of grand winning prize, together with a top corporate job.

Shown on NTV7, The Firm is a reality show that showcases the local talents performing a series of corporate tasks, and is considered Malaysia’s answer to the popular Donald Trump’s Apprentice show.

It will be aired weekly on every Saturday, 8.30pm with one team member from the losing group eliminated in each episode.

In what was seen as a much better start than the previous first season, all the contestants came on strongly in this first episode in an effort to stamp their presence and winning respect from others. The 14 contestants – Anoop, Boon Yew, Jennifer, Masami, Choo Ann, Dian, Ridzuan, Terence, Ain, Christopher, Joo Lee, Kian You, Salasiah and Yuen Wai, were divided into 2 teams; team Equity and team Asset.

Peter Pek and Chan Boon Yong, who were familiar figures in the last season, were again at the helm as the mentors for the teams.

Anoop and Terence, two contrasting characters and personalities, were appointed the team leaders for the first week’s task, which is providing the best dining experience to the Carat Club, founded by one of the mentors, Boon Yong. While Anoop, in an obvious attempt was seen trying to make himself look good throughout the task, Terence, on the other hand showed cracks and was losing his influence to drive his team forward.

It was Asset that emerged the winning team, but in the end, no one was eliminated this time round. However, cracks in relationship are beginning to appear, and only time will tell if things will get personal in the upcoming episodes.

The Singapore government decision to invest more than $2 billion in biomedical science sector is now bearing fruits with the country now leading the charge as one of the world’s fastest growing biomedical centers.

Since embarking the project, more than 50 companies, many of which the world’s largest pharmaceutical and life science corporations, have set up their research and development (R&D) centers and laboratories in Singapore.

Some of the companies investing major bucks in the country are Pfizer (multi-theraupeutic clinical), Novartis (tropical diseases), Takeda (Neuro-science) and Eli Lilly (cancer and metabolic diseases). Novartis, Pfizer, Novartis and Lilly are ranked among 50 of the most profitable health companies globally.

Apart from getting a flock of international investments, Singapore home grown companies have been showing signs of global competitiveness with the emergence of award winning companies such as Merlion Pharmaceuticals, S*Bio, the Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, Veredus Laboratories and the likes.

One of Singapore’s strengths is its ability to attract science and technology professionals from outside of the country with attractive compensation and conducive research environment. In fact, many researchers from the neighboring countries, particularly Malaysia, have decided to migrate to Singapore for better salary and pay.

A researcher in Singapore can earn up to 5 times of those working in Malaysia.

A medical consultant is often highly respected due his high competency on certain medical matters, and complexity of cases they handle.

Not only that, a medical professional holding such position can demand top pay. As proven in major developed countries such as United States, United Kingdom and Singapore, medical consultants have one of the highest salaries around.

Consultant is a title accorded to senior doctors who have accomplished the required training in their chosen specialization.

Nevertheless, they are still human, and are sometimes subject to mistakes and blunders. In United Kingdom, a consultant working with Hereford County Hospital has been suspended indefinitely after investigation discovered that more than a dozen cancer patients diagnosed by the consultant were wrongly told they do not have the disease.

The investigation was launched after a review indicated that there has been possible errors in the examination conducted on patients’ tissue samples.

As a result of the wrong diagnosis, 102 of over 4,000 patients were recalled, with 70 of them, or 70% requiring changes in treatment.

The consultant is pending for disciplinary procedure.