Boosting innovation in Singapore’s medtech ecosystem
Singapore is going all out to transform the medtech landscape, with at least four accelerators dedicated to enabling its growth
The global medical technology or medtech industry is currently estimated to be worth at least US$350 billion.
In Asia, the appetite for medical technology is expanding with China’s demand for medical services and is expected to grow by 15 per cent by 2020.
In Singapore, the story is no different.
With the pressures of a rapidly ageing population, there is a clear demand for more innovation in the medtech and biomedical industry in order to provide a safer, more efficient healthcare at more affordable costs.
However, despite strong market demand, medtech startups and entrepreneurs may lack the knowledge and support in product commercialisation due to the highly complex and regulated environment.
Thankfully, help for medtech startups in Singapore through various grants and programmes is not too far away.
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Last year, the Sector Specific Accelerator (SSA) Programme was launched by SPRING Singapore.
It appointed a network of four accelerators – the Singapore Medtech Accelerator, Clearbridge BSA, the Med Tech Alliance and Zicom MedTacc – to identify and invest in promising medtech ventures as well as offer mentoring and business guidance.
By providing smart money that will give startups in the local medical technology industry a leg-up in their business, these accelerators can shorten their learning curve and hasten the commercialisation process.
Introducing Private Sector Translators
To give entrepreneurs more support in their product development, SPRING Singapore has also appointed Private Sector Translators (PST) in the medtech and clean technology industries.
These PSTs augment the public translational infrastructure to assist and speed up IP (Intellectual Property) translation, as it provides access to a wider pool of IPs and expertise that is beyond public research institutions.
Making the leap from R&D to commercialisation
One such medtech local enterprise, Biobot Surgical Pte Ltd, sought the help of PSTs and COIs (Centres of Innovation) to develop its flagship product Biobot – a robotic transperineal prostate biopsy device that aims to introduce increased reliability and accuracy in the procedure with a single-hole puncture.
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“In developing a next gen robot for commercial purposes, regulatory compliance, manufacturability, and usability of the robot must be taken into account. In the medtech industry, we have to ensure regulatory compliance in order to sell. This is to ensure that we have taken a responsible approach to assure patient’s safety,” said Sim Kok Hwee, CEO of Biobot Surgical Pte Ltd, in an email interview with e27.
“Manufacturability is important to ensure that a robot could be reliably and repeatably manufactured to prescribed technical specifications and requirements. Identifying critical components, and key information like shelf life, mean time to failure, and alternate vendors, are important to ensure the quality of the robot. Usability is required to identify features that allow clinicians to have a good overall experience,” he continued.
For medtech startups, making the leap from development to building a market viable product would be relatively difficult compared to a biomedical MNC.
“As a startup transitioning from R&D mode into commercialisation mode, these developments could come across as a shock as these are not typically the core competence of an early stage medtech startup,” said Sim.
How PSTs help
To overcome these challenges, Biobot collaborated with one of the PSTs: iPtec – which focusses on translating medtech ideas or concepts into a tangible device for local startups and SMEs. In previous projects, iPtec assisted in the development of medtech devices such as the Robotic Motion Control Platform, PCR Reader, Fluidic Chip Design and a Fluid Dispensing Device.
Thus, Biobot was a good fit for iPtec’s suite of services, which includes mechanical design, firmware and software development, vision algorithm and optical systems development, product quality assurance and testing, rapid prototyping, regulatory inputs, assembly and precision machining.
Through this collaboration, iPtec was able to provide crucial electromechanical support such as prototyping services, small batch production runs, test bedding and co-development support including the design and help develop accessories to the robotic platform so that a complete suite can be provided to the end-user to Biobot.
It also helped with the design transfer process to a contract manufacturer.
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Biobot’s flagship device has also garnered keen interest from major overseas markets. It has established ties with universities and hospitals to set up a Centre of Excellence – a reference site to provide technical training.
In addition, the startup is “currently in discussions with academic hospitals to leverage on our robotic positioning platform to work with existing treatment applications to deliver targeted therapy,” concluded Sim.
Disclaimer: This article has been written in collaboration with SPRING Singapore. To kick start your innovative and high-tech ideas, you can tap on SPRING Singapore’s assistance schemes to embark on your technology innovation projects. To find out how you can work with a Private Sector Translator, please visit www.spring.gov.sg. You can also contact EnterpriseOne at (65) 6898 1800 or enterpriseone@spring.gov.sg.
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