The Case for Asia — Why Should Your Business Be There? | LSI USA '25

Chin Jie Lim  0:00  
Hi everyone. Thank you for joining us today for the Asia workshop. Many thanks to LSI for having us here, and we're certainly excited for LSI Asia in Singapore that's going to take place in June. I am CJ from the Singapore Economic Development Board, and I'm excited to offer you a teaser of Singapore as well as insights on how you can leverage Asia Pacific for growth. Now, before I begin, I wanted to provide a quick introduction to the Singapore economic development board. We are the lead government agency in Singapore tasked with developing and executing Singapore's economic development strategy. This includes a blend of both investment facilitation as well as industry development. So in short, if you're interested in learning about how Singapore can play a role in your global strategy, we'll be the right people to speak to now. Today's session will comprise of two parts. Firstly, a presentation on EDB s views on why companies should consider Singapore as you think about Asia Pacific. And secondly, a panel session with my esteemed guest over here, where you get to hear more about their views of what Asia Pacific has to offer. Now without further ado, let me jump into a quick sharing on Singapore. I'll walk you through three key segments. Firstly, an overview of Singapore's med tech industry. Secondly, a quick dive into our manufacturing ecosystem, and lastly, an overview of our innovation ecosystem and how we're thinking about the next part of growth. So starting with Asia, Asia now happens to be the world's fastest growing and second largest market for Matt tech. In fact, more than 60% of the world's population will be in Asia by 2030 with one in four age 60 or above and at higher risk of living with a chronic disease. And future numbers look great as the market is expected to continue growing at 10.5% CAGR until 2030 and Singapore is conveniently located at the heart of Asia Pacific. Over the past few decades, we have emerged as one of the best places for companies to access Asia and its growth, offering healthcare companies a gateway to Asia with our proximity vibrancy, as well as a pro business, stable and neutral operating environment. So let me provide you a snapshot of Singapore's med tech industry today, starting with the broader biomedical industry in Singapore, which is one which we have built, device by device, company by company, over the past two decades. And this slide over here provides an overview of the vibrancy and diversity of the ecosystem in Singapore today. We house functions ranging from manufacturing R D as well as regional headquarter activities. Key stakeholders in our ecosystem range from MNCs to start ups and sporting players such as contract manufacturers and product development houses, making Singapore a conducive location to provide a wide variety of services and solutions to med tech companies towards the future. We also aim to be a hub for product and process innovation and to increase resilience of the ecosystem through enhanced collaborations with local stakeholders such as suppliers and system integrators. And underpinning the growth of our med tech sector is our 16,000 strong workforce, comprising of highly skilled technicians as well as scientists, researchers. And we are committed to building a robust talent pool to support the growing needs of the sector, whether in quantity or quality. A couple of channels that you know companies can look out for for talent, first, our institutes of higher learning, which add more than 25,000 graduates to the talent pipeline every year, working closely with us to shape curriculum and training programs as talent needs evolve. There's also a huge pool of over 400,000 people in the adjacent industries that could be easily retrained for the math, tech sector, coming from energy and chemicals, electronics as well as the aerospace sectors, and lastly, our network of 16 national research institutes that work with companies to address Med, tech specific problem statements across software, hardware, product, R and D, manufacturing process improvement. They also host significant expertise and a talent base that the sector can tap on. Now let me tap on our manufacturing ecosystem. Medtech sector in Singapore has seen a strong trajectory of upward growth, with a manufacturing output of $14 billion in 2023 currently has over four companies with 35 with over 35 manufacturing plants. Our Medtech industry covers four key verticals, with many of the top med techs having manufacturing operations here. These companies operations are often the top performing across the multinationals global manufacturing network. For example, Agilent, which? Which? Agilent, Singapore facility was the first among its 28 sites. Is to be recognized as a World Economic Forum, lighthouse for effectively adopting industry 4.0 technologies, leading to improvements such as productivity and output by 60% and 80% respectively. Other top players, like Medtronic Edwards and rasmap also have a manufacturing base in Singapore, complemented by R and D for product or process development, or both. And underpinning this manufacturing base is a vibrant supplier ecosystem of more than 2700 precision engineering and EMS providers. Many of these suppliers have a full suite of design, prototyping, production and supply chain management capabilities, which makes it easy for Medtech companies to tap into a suite of 20 key solutions to complement existing manufacturing operations of our CO innovation to develop new products or processes. For example, Leica Microsystems, a leading microscopy and scientific instrumentation company that is part of dataher manufactures its surgical microscopes in Singapore by tapping on the locals on by tapping on local suppliers to supply high precision components that are key for its products. So when you think of manufacturing in Singapore, think of us as a location that can support your best in class operations, your supply chain operations, and also as a location where you can find partnerships with product owners to drive business growth. Moving on to innovation. Innovation is core to our ambition as a leading med tech hub, and Singapore has built up a strong track record of leading med tech companies choosing to do R and D here, undertaking key process and product development activities for the global network. We now have more than 20 5r and D centers across leading companies launching products from Singapore for global markets. For example, Ws audiology, a global leader in the hearing aid industry, operates the second largest R and D team in Singapore, and the team has been instrumental in product development for hearing aids, chargers, rechargeability, technology and so on. Last year, Ws audiology announced that it will be establishing its third audiological research lab in Singapore to conduct research for the Asian population. And why are companies choosing to innovate in Singapore? Three reasons. First, our strong talent pool. Second, our reputation for trust and quality. We have a solid IP region in place, ranking among the top five globally for the strength of our IP protection since 2014 and this is complemented by a robust and streamlined regulatory process, with our health regulatory agency being designated as a who listed authority. And third, a vibrant and supportive ecosystem consisting of a rapidly growing base of startups, incubators and investors, as well as research, research and clinical partners that support med tech, product, productization and commercialization. Now, one of the key areas of innovation that is top of mind for us and probably for you as well, is how AI will be driving the next wave of Medtech innovation. And in line with our vision to be a leading global med tech hub, we are very keen for Singapore to be the leading ecosystem in Asia for companies to develop and to drive the adoption of AI enabled healthcare solutions. Our ambitions are well supported by Singapore's national AI strategy, where we have stated that we'll be investing over $750 million over the next five years into AI compute talent and industry development, and our robust and establish digital and semiconductor ecosystems put us in good state to capture opportunities in AI in terms of compute capacity, Singapore is a leader in Southeast Asia, with 50% of Southeast Asia's data center capacity hosted in Singapore, our semiconductor sector is also home to over 20 wafer fats, which account for 5% of Global wafer fat capacity, almost similar to that, almost similar to the total capacity in the whole of Europe. The sector also serves as a pillar that enables the development of med tech products with ready partners that can do IC design for chips that go into medical wearables and fabrication of Biomet, as we talk about the tech stack in the digital industry, Singapore has developed a stack of our own to provide med tech companies a one stop shop for AI and able R and D. There are five essential building blocks, access to firstly, access to clinical data. Secondly, industry expertise. Thirdly R and D capabilities. Fourthly talent, and lastly, a vibrant healthcare eco, a vibrant healthcare innovation ecosystem. We unfortunately don't have time to go in depth into all of them today, but if there's any of the building blocks that you're interested to find out more about, we'll be happy to double click on them after this whole session.

Chin Jie Lim  9:58  
So with this, we have come. On to the end of the first part, hopefully you'll take away three key messages. First, Singapore is a key note to capture Medtech opportunities for the Asia Pacific region, especially in the next mountain growth of especially, especially in the next month of growth like AI in Medtech. Secondly, we have a strong track record of companies tapping the ecosystem to set up manufacturing and all to enhance the existing supply chains, as well as undertake product and process R and D. And lastly, we are happy to work with you to discover these opportunities and to support you in growing your operations, whether in Singapore or Asia Pacific. If you're interested to learn even more about our Medtech ecosystem. We welcome you to review some business resources we have put together, or to head down to LSI Asia in June. Please also feel free to reach out to me and my colleagues here, either after this or at our booth. So now we'll move on to the second part of the session. We have our panelists here, and maybe we'll start off with a quick introduction. All you'll start.

Ryan McGuinness  11:08  
All right, yeah. Thank you very much. Thanks for inviting me to be on the panel, and thanks also to the LSI crew for putting on another amazing show. It's great to be here again this year. My name is Ryan McGuinness. I'm commercial general manager at triple ring in triple ring is a corporate growth lab. Our headquarters are in Silicon Valley. We also have offices in Boston. And we create growth drivers for large corporations in the med tech and life science sectors. And we do this through forming strategic partnerships in new entities that are funded from the balance sheet, and often we bring in external capital to move these things along. And the reason we do this is to help large corporations manage their two to four year innovation gaps and to create streams of growth that are long term and sustainable at triple ring. At triple ring, we also partner with select well funded startups that are often attached to venture firms that we're close to and and Mayor is an example of one of those companies. So thanks.

Maher Khaled  12:21  
Thanks for having me along, inviting me onto the panel. I'm Mayor Khaled. I'm the CEO and co founder of luminoma diagnostics. We're developing a skin cancer diagnostic aid that's on basis of Raman spectroscopy. As Ryan said, we're accessing his expertise at triple ring. The EP came out of the University of Auckland, I've spent some time in a number of startups in both Australia and New Zealand, from pre company formation, prototyping, talking to product development companies. Is there an opportunity here, all the way through to management consulting from McKinsey to into j and j and Philip. So what a broad experience from formation to acquisition.

Charlene Yong  13:05  
Nice. Thanks, CJ. hi, everyone. Charlene from enterprise Singapore. Enterprise Singapore is a Singapore government trade agency that helps to grow Singapore enterprises. And you do have offices in the US, and you know our main role is to help them, Singapore companies in general, internationalize and expand in the US. Yeah, and I'm based in LA.

John Eng  13:26  
Hi everyone. Myself, I'm John. I'm from the Singapore EDB, so colleagues with Chin Jie over there. I lead the med tech industry cluster in Singapore. So I've had last couple of years working with many companies all over the world to consider Singapore as their base for med tech to grow in Asia, including many from the US. Of course, nice to be here.

Chin Jie Lim  13:50  
Thank you. So maybe we'll start with Ryan. Ryan, you know you've had the opportunity to partner Medtech space across North America, Europe and APAC in their innovation journey, including with luminoma. Well, what would you say are distinct factors in APAC smite tech ecosystem that US companies should be aware of?

Ryan McGuinness  14:10  
Yeah, the APAC region, as you mentioned, is a very large block of economic activity, especially in healthcare, right? And the world's population is largely centered around the Asian, Pacific region. And so for that reason, it is an incredibly important market and set of markets to be accessing. And what is striking from our position in Silicon Valley as we try to innovate, not just in North America, but also around the Pacific Rim, is that there's fantastic ideas coming from all over the Pacific region. They're very skilled and smart people, and there are big. Needs that that need to be met or unmet at this time. And so it's it's a very fertile ground for innovating for us, and we like to be involved in innovation, and that's what we're good at. And and I think we'll talk about it a bit more. Our focus for the last dozen years has been on, primarily on Japan, and helping to build up the innovation ecosystem in Japan. It's been a fantastic experience, and amazing to watch these things grow over time.

Chin Jie Lim  15:32  
Well over to you Maher, you've been operating for quite a bit of time in the Australian, New Zealand region as part of the broader Apex strategy. What are one or two things that companies should take note of in that part of the part of the world? 

Maher Khaled  15:46  
Okay, so as as Ryan said, there's, there's an innovation ecosystem there that's driving, I think the two things were just saying is that it is established. There are companies like ResMed, cochlea, and in New Zealand, there's Fisher and Paykel healthcare. And these companies have market caps ranging from 12 billion US to 34 billion US. So there's established big players, and underneath them, there are a range of innovators who are developing products and looking to enter the US market or or be or be acquired by strategics. I personally have worked at Reza health, which had a range of developed a smartphone app that diagnosed a range of respiratory diseases. And that was I partnered with a range of big pharma companies, and as eventually was acquired by Pfizer. So there's innovation there that's that is attracted to multinationals. And probably the second thing is talk about is the IP that's coming out of the universities there that fuels all of this, that seeds these companies. Australia, depending upon the rankings, as between six and nine universities in the top 100 in the world. And New Zealand has one, sometimes two. So for a small population, they're definitely punching well above their weight in IP and ideas. And from there, there's a good innovation ecosystem that's supported by early stage venture capital.

Chin Jie Lim  17:15  
Thanks Maher and maybe moving on to John. John, we've seen many global companies set up in Singapore to access Asia Pacific. What are some of the reasons they are telling you for why they are growing your footprint in Singapore?

John Eng  17:28  
Yeah, I think, I think fundamentally, there are two reasons why global companies are considering the base in Asia, thematically, growth and resilience. I think Asia has always been presents itself as long term growth opportunity. And you know, CJ presented slides early on around I remember the numbers around 100 50 billion growing to 220 5 billion. So there's a lot of growth potential as well. But besides growth, I think it's about resilience. And, you know, it's how to actually position their global companies or startups even for the future. And one part of that growth definitely is around talent. So if you look at Asia, Asia presents itself a huge capacity for talent growth. India and China, you've got one to 2 million graduates, engineering graduates a year. Think about the magnitude of those numbers, and these can funnel, I think, the talent pipeline for companies looking to capture that growth in Asia. The second aspect related to that strategy is around the supply base, which is really critical for an industry like med tech. We've seen a lot of companies expand into North Asia in the last couple of years. But increasingly as well, we are seeing companies form that supply base into South Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia. And you know, this is something that we look we look for as well, but I think to expand into any location, including Asia. And there are lots of complexities involved, especially if you're a young startup, or even if you're a larger company. You know, moving into any other foreign jurisdiction is not easy. So we do see companies that you consider Singapore as their trusted, kind of a neutral location for them to stage for that growth opportunity in Asia. You know, in Singapore, we've got 6000 US MNCs that have been there, so there's a lot of familiarity with operating in Singapore.

Chin Jie Lim  19:30  
Thanks, John, yeah, I think, you know, Asia Pacific definitely is a very heterogeneous, you know, region, and it's great that we have folks from EDB that can navigate you through Singapore. We have met here that can, you know, take you through Australia, New Zealand, for Japan, Ryan, who is very experienced, you know, has has done quite a bit of work there. I thought to just ask Ryan, you know, how was your experience when working in Japan? And Medtech ecosystem. What are some of the key points that you would like to highlight to the audience here today?

Ryan McGuinness  20:06  
Yeah, as I mentioned, so we've been involved for the last 12 years or so in helping out develop the healthcare innovation ecosystem in Japan, and it's been an amazing journey. We do this through a set of trade missions, essentially, that are now run by a group called the US Japan healthcare connection. And what we've been involved with is a number of ministries inside of Japan, the government, but also the large corporates all around Japan, and helping them to build up an innovation ecosystem around Medtech and life sciences, and access the global talent pool and supply chains, ultimately trying to get into the United States as the largest med tech market on the Planet, and to watch a group of or a country evolve over a relatively short period of time, a decade or so, from a an ecosystem that had very few entrepreneurs was a bit risk averse, famously, to a point now where it's they're on A very steep trajectory of innovation and supporting early innovation and taking risks that were unusual or unheard of a dozen years ago. And, you know, from our perspective, working across borders, there's a little bit of a, you know, a barrier to cross over culturally, but in healthcare, broadly, med, device and life sciences specifically, this is a global community that is very mission driven, and so it doesn't take long to get over these cultural barriers and realize that we were all trying to do the same thing. We're all trying to better healthcare, to help patients and to distribute healthcare more broadly, and so then it becomes quite easy. The relationships are actually, I think, much easier to form in this industry than in many others. So it's, it's been a very positive experience for us.

Chin Jie Lim  22:17  
Thanks. Ryan Charlene, you know some on the point of cultural barriers. You definitely work with plenty of Singapore based companies that collaborate with us, companies they are trying to enter the region. And you I, you know, you definitely see a lot of those cultural differences. What are some of the most successful strategies that companies adopt to know, overcome this cultural barriers, as well as to de risk their entry into Asia Pacific. 

Charlene Yong  22:44  
Yeah, thanks, CJ, yeah. I think, you know, you rightly mentioned that the APEC region is very, you know, it's not homogenous like the US, right? There's a lot of challenges. You know, different regulatory barriers, language barriers, and also, I think reimbursement systems were not the same, right? So I think for any you know, US company who wants to actually branch out into Asia and to actually they have a ready product to sell, you know, I think, you know, most established channels, like distributors, consultants, are the way to go. But I think if we are talking about a new medical device or an innovation, you know, you do need partners to actually scale up and commercialize. So we do have some partners in Singapore that can help to accelerate the process. I think one of it is the national healthcare innovation center, which also works with, you know, local and foreign, you know, companies to help, you know, establish, like clinic, clinical validation for the Asian market. Right? For example, go to market strategies, you know, offering mentorship. We also have, you know, this new initiative called Medtech catapult, which actually links up and contract manufacturers to actually, you know, us, Medtech device companies who want to scale up as well and all these contract manufacturers or, you know, you know, ecosystem partners will also have networks to the greater Southeast Asian region. So we're not only looking at Singapore as just the base, but also the surrounding region as well. I think with that, I think it does help to, you know, de risk the entry into Asia, especially when there's one central node that helps to, you know, track out your path and expansion as well. Yeah. And I think other than that, I also wouldn't discount, like, the regional pitching sessions, you know, where I think startups or, you know, even smaller companies participate in these innovation like challenges or pitching sessions to raise their profile to investors around the area. Because these pitching sessions are actually often well attended, you know, by the ecosystem around not just Singapore, but Southeast Asia as well. And there have been successful cases where foreign companies participated in these sort of competitions to actually gain recognition around the area.

Chin Jie Lim  24:47  
Thanks. Charlene. John, over to you think there are some staffs here that are likely curious about access to funding and customers. What features are. The Singapore meta ecosystem, or could those companies leverage?

John Eng  25:04  
Yeah, well, it's, it's really great to be here at LSI, and just being amidst all the innovation that's happening. And for us, I think we see perhaps three things that they can look forward to in the Singapore ecosystem. I think the first is, I think the proximity to strategics, like what was mentioned. I think many companies, companies are not necessarily new to Asia, but many of them have regional commercial leadership that's based out of Singapore to oversee the Asia Pacific region as well. So that innovation is a very, very close proximity to these large strategics. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, because of that growth of innovation, not just in Singapore. So CJ mentioned 400 companies in Singapore. Many of them are actually startups as well. But imagine a small country like Singapore having 400 in the whole of Asia, there's going to be 1000s of them. And because of that innovation that's happening there, I think we're seeing corporates as well set up corporate venture units in Singapore ready to look out at opportunities and scouting technologies. And alongside that, I think funding has grown in Singapore as well. So for Singapore, just in 2022 alone, the startups in Singapore capture $1.2 billion of funding. And alongside that, I think we're seeing venture firms alongside the corporate corporate venture firms that are setting up in Singapore to tap that growth. So for example, J labs set up a unit in Singapore as well to actually Shepherd innovation from the from the Asia region into the global commercialization engine. The last piece, I think, that startups can look forward to in Singapore is what Charlene mentioned, which is, I think the proximity to supply base. And, you know, finding a supplier in Asia sometimes can be a needle in a haystack, because volume is great, but it's hard to actually find the right fit in Asia. Singapore could be a good place to start for these companies, because we do think that being small, we have curated the networks a bit more so give or take, 2700 of which I think we put up 100 suppliers that are familiar with med tech and beyond that. Charlene mentioned, we've set up Medtech at the bot as well to actually coordinate some of these productization efforts with the supply ecosystem here. So yeah, I think we have a nurturing ecosystem for startups who are curious about Asia and want to test out their technologies in Singapore, close to Asia.

Chin Jie Lim  27:40  
Thanks, John. We definitely heard a lot of, heard a lot about Singapore's initiatives. But first, you know, I like to, like to offer, May her to perhaps also share more about the ecosystem that Australia New Zealand has to offer for startups, or perhaps even, you know, as the people who are here, you know, how can they partner with yourself, or with Australia New Zealand, to continue raising that ecosystem in that region.

Maher Khaled  28:05  
So one thing I've noticed, I think Big Pharma have discovered Asia Pacific and to go Australia, New Zealand a lot earlier. They've had innovation scouts there, engaging with the universities, companies, establishing partnerships and providing the resource from, you know, more established US companies to collaborate, sometimes with the scientists in the university or through or through co development, leading towards acquisition. And so I think one of the things that that innovation pipeline has done is the both Australia, New Zealand governments encourage R and D activity very heavily to bring multinational support for it. And both have schemes which involve 43 and a half percent of your R and D spend to be provided paid back to the company as a R and D tax credit. So any investments that multinationals put into those companies, perhaps to prove up a product. We'll take it through a clinical trial. They're going to get almost half of that back or topped up by the gun. So there's, there's that system there that's been really kind of encouraging those those collaborations. And again, you know, strategics well and truly are based in the reason, as pointed out earlier. And you know, I think there's low cultural barriers as well. I think it's a lot of businesses there are used to working with the US.

Chin Jie Lim  29:30  
Thanks Maher. Certainly very insightful and maybe a final question to all the panelists up here now, what are some practical tips that you would offer companies that are looking to enter Asia Pacific. 

Ryan McGuinness  29:45  
All right, I'll start, you know, the discussion it strikes me, and this is something that we've noticed in the years that we've been working around the Asia Pacific region. You know, sometimes it's daunting because it is a very heterogeneous. Landscape, so many countries, so many different regulatory systems, different economies and this kind of thing. But to me, heterogeneity, heterogeneity also means diversity. And never has diversity or diversified approach to bringing new products to market been more important than now. Right? The world seems to be in a period of kind of upheaval, and you need to be diversified in your supply chains, in your innovation paths, in your funding, you know streams as well. And so the Asia Pacific region has, you know, into decades now of experience collaborating across a big pool of water, and they're well established friendships, partnerships that come and go, but by and large, everything you need is a zoom call away or, you know, a lengthy flight away. But we're a lot more similar than dissimilar all the time. And so I guess pragmatically, I absolutely I mean, access the APAC region. It's a very large and diverse market which presents all kinds of fantastic opportunities.

Chin Jie Lim  31:17  
Maher,

Maher Khaled  31:18  
I would say, engage with some of the Trade and Enterprise organizations, both in Australia New Zealand, that we aren't huge neither country is a huge population, so they do have good coverage and ideas of who is who in the zoo, and can direct you to potential partners, universities as well, will Be able to most medical technologies come from those universities, and so they'll know who there's who's index kind of stable, and have those ecosystems or those countries. So both countries are heavily located around heavily populated cities, and there's a lot of integration there. So I think there's a good way it's quite easy to be able to find out who you need to be talking to.

Charlene Yong  32:03  
I think maybe on May this point as well, also to just maybe leverage on existing resources that are already in market, be it program offices, initiatives that the government has right, I think there's no need to actually, you know, reinvent the wheel, because there are resources that are readily available already to Make things, you know, a lot easier for market entry, rather than having to do everything yourself. So let me just to Yeah. Highlight, highlight that,

John Eng  32:29  
yeah. I think echoing audience to some sense. I think as a startup, resources are, you know, have to be very efficient. And I think ecosystems that provide capability for you to leverage. I think you should try and maximize leveraging those resources as far as possible. But even so, finding those resources are not easy. So at least in Singapore, we try to curate the path for startups as well, and sometimes we don't do it ourselves. Even we work with folks like med technovator, we work with J labs, trying to create a garden path for startups who may, may choose to actually tap into opportunities in Singapore. Yeah. So I guess the message is leverage, and also, you know, don't, don't be a stranger. Reach out to us to actually tap into networks knowledge, and hopefully as well, see you in outside Asia, in Singapore. 

Chin Jie Lim  33:29  
All right. Well, we've come to time now, so join me in thanking our panelists for providing such a insightful Saturn and if you have, you know, further questions that you'd like to to raise, feel free to catch us after this session, the EDB Singapore EDB colleagues will be around here at our booth. And then, you know, you know, feel free to catch Ryan and Maher as they're, you know, as they are as they head off to the various meetings as well as their sessions. All right. Thank you, everyone. I hope to see you in Singapore in June.