Digital Healthcare
Healthcare markets today is what FinTech industry looked like five years ago. Digital health is still in a nascent stage and one of the crucial lessons that we can learn and apply from the finance world is democratizing the data. Over four years it’s been seen that a determined ecosystem is growing in this space. Similar to what we have also witnessed in the past, the same trend with e-commerce industry.
In 2018, $6.8B of venture capital was invested in the Asia Pacific, and on the contrary other countries like the US and Europe stands at $8.2B & $2B respectively. This clearly shows that Asia Pacific is second in the world with around four and a half to five thousand start-ups in this region which are growing and raising more money, receiving more FDA regulatory approvals. Halodoc is one such start-up in Jakarta which generated almost $100M for its Series B becoming the largest growth in health tech/digital health start-up in Southeast Asia.
The Democratization of Digital Healthcare
The World Health Organization and World Bank brought out two reports citing moving statistics on healthcare. The first report stated that more than half the world lacks access to essential health services. The second striking statistic was that every year, 100 million households loose themselves to bankruptcy or a medical catastrophe. Galen Growth Asia is a global leader in digital health intelligence and the company believes that digital health has massive scope to democratize healthcare. Galen lays focus on giving access on healthcare and improving price points for healthcare. This also aligns the company with UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), about improving healthcare.
Digitalization brings the fundamental block in improving healthcare with the help of the penetration of smartphones and 4G networks in Asia. We are able to see real innovation, not Just in technology front but also innovation around business. These developments are reaching newer horizons like Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos, and also developing markets like Indonesia, India and China.
Regulating Healthcare at a Regional Level
The primary challenge that start-ups face in the ASEAN region is a system of vast healthcare regulatory laws that vary from country to country. To successfully implement digital healthcare ASEAN countries, require a systematic framework uniform across different countries.
There have been initial efforts to bring uniformity in some of the regulatory frameworks. In Singapore, regulatory approvals of other countries are always referred. For instance, devices with regulatory approvals from FDA or European medical agencies are processed for abbreviated approvals. They refer the approval elsewhere to cut short of approval timelines.
Within the ASEAN region, there are also regional regulatory harmonization group which works to promote uniform regulatory framework across ASEAN countries. Singapore launched their regulatory sandbox back in the year 2018 and many ASEAN countries reach out to Singapore’s MOH to refer the sandbox. Uniform healthcare regulations and harmonization across the ASEAN region is a must for making a paradigm shift to digital health.
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