Taiwan’s Health Tech success lies in Global South Collaboration

Even though Taiwan’s health tech has prevented the pandemic, MedTech regulations specialist Hasnaa points out that establishing a closer connection with the global south is the key to make Taiwan a leader in innovation of health tech.

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Finding one’s Covid calling

In October, I had the chance to attend the 2020 International Symposium on Covid-19 at Academia Sinica. Dr. Jason Wang, Director of Center for Policy, Outcomes and Prevention at Stanford University, gave an excellent presentation where he suggested Taiwan should collaborate with the emerging market leader in Pharma, and home to the largest vaccine manufacturing site in the world, India.

Dr. Wang added that while the Serum Institute of India (SSI) is going to get really busy manufacturing Covid-19 vaccines, Taiwanese companies could leverage local capabilities to focus on producing syringes, needles, packaging and sterilization solutions to support the delivery of the first world-wide vaccination campaign. This was my first aha moment.

The second was at a start-up DemoDay on Minimally Invasive Surgery in Taipei. To my biggest surprise, investors who had dialled in from Europe and the US, recommended vaccines and Covid-19 test development be left to those who are already in the field.

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