Podcast: The Current Growth Drivers For Medtech In The Asia-Pacific Region

For its 2022 annual conference, APACMed (the Asia Pacific Medical Technology Association) chose to focus on how the medical devices industry can promote patient-centricity and ensure patient activation in the industry’s remit, ranging from advocacy to how digital technology can build trust.

John Collings: Supporting Asia's medtech growth

The conference’s two-day program, which drew an in-person and virtual audience of some 1,300 attendees, also updated delegates on market access, regulatory, and digital heath trends, and profiled how start-ups can showcase innovation and build connections with the investment community.

One week post-conference, In Vivo spoke to new chairman John Collings to get a sense of how the local industry is coping with fast rising-demand in the 48 countries of Asia, which together account for 60% of the world’s population.

Health care systems across the region vary greatly, to the extent that 1.6 billion people are without health care access. One in four will be over 65 years of age in the coming decade. This rapidly aging population is one reason for the growth of the medtech industry and market regionally.

The regional medtech innovators come not just from Japan and South Korea, but also Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia and Vietnam, among others. Moreover, half of APACMed’s member are start-ups. Singapore, China, Hong Kong and India have all upped their innovation in the post-pandemic period.

It is a vibrant and varied territory for medtech innovation, a region where markets are in growth and where the market dynamics point to that growth continuing.

Collings, who is also president of Stryker Asia, opened the two-day annual forum on 26 September. It was his first in the hot seat, and APACMed’s eighth. In Vivo’s podcast (below) with him covered the following subjects (with timings):

• Themes in debate at APACMed’s eighth annual MedTech Forum (at 52 seconds)

• The growing important of Asia to the global medtech industry (2 minutes 50s)

• Asia as a global medtech innovator – the shift from the EU and US (6:42)

• The top three concerns of APACMed’s members, including regulatory processes and supporting emerging technologies; and future focuses on digital health, patient centricity, ESG and nurturing talent (8:51)

• Asia’s trump card in digital health care applications (12:47)

• Sustainability and the “E” in ESG – how medtechs are embracing the needs (16:48)

• The “S” in ESG: how DE&I is impacting medtech company culture in Asia (19:03)

• Supporting access to technologies and facilitating regulatory harmonization (21:18)

• Personal challenges and goals for John Collings as APACMed chairman (22:16).