From labs to global impact: How can Singapore shape the future of medicine?

Childbirth is one of the most painful experiences a woman can have. Many turn to epidurals, anaesthesia delivered to the spine, for pain relief. But they are challenging to perform because the position and angle of the needle have to be just right. 

In the past, at KK Women’s and Children’s Hospital (KKH), three out of 10 women required a second epidural attempt. Since May 2023, the hospital has raised the first-attempt success rate to 92 per cent, thanks to

an ultrasound solution powered by artificial intelligence (AI)

. 

It helps doctors locate the precise point to which to deliver the epidural. The brainchild of clinicians at KKH who collaborated with researchers, it has been approved for use in other Singapore healthcare institutions and will be undergoing trials overseas. 

Another Singapore-developed innovation is AeviceMD, a smart stethoscope that detects abnormal lung sounds like wheezing, and helps doctors make quick clinical decisions and reduce hospital stays. 

The developer, digital health company Aevice Health, has secured US$7 million (S$9.4 million) in private capital to expand its operations in the United States and Japan. 

The National Health Innovation Centre Singapore (NHIC), which has been operating for 10 years, contributed to the development of both solutions and to their success story in the Singapore start-up scene. This strengthened the Republic’s position as the world’s fourth-most innovative economy, as ranked by the Global Innovation Index 2024. 

However, what is often taken for granted with most innovations is the journey to the point of market entry and expansion. 

With AeviceMD, the concept started back in 2012. It was only in 2023 that Aevice Health raised US$7 million, led by Singapore-based healthcare investor Coronet Ventures, to scale its technology beyond Singapore. 

These expansions hold benefits for the Asean region and beyond. To pave the way for locally developed health tech to deliver a meaningful impact to healthcare systems outside of Singapore, it is important to establish closer ties between the medical communities of different countries so that new technologies can be shared and localised.

However, owing to differing economic circumstances and environments, it is not always possible for this to happen. What is needed is more interconnectedness within the healthcare system and between the local healthcare innovation landscape and the rest of the world.

The need to fast-track development

The path from laboratory bench to patient bedside is a complex one, involving rigorous research, clinical trials and regulatory approvals. As Singapore’s population ages, there is an increasing need to fast-track this process. 

Health-tech innovation holds immense promise for enabling healthcare professionals to deliver care with greater precision and efficiency, but it can take a long time to bring an innovation to the clinic and market. 

The more complex a device, the higher the risk and longer the development period. A low-risk product such as a medical glove may have a shorter pathway to approval compared with a high-risk device such as a pacemaker, which demands more extensive evaluation. 

For example, it can take anywhere from three to 10 years for medical software or devices to reach clinical practice from the initial stage, depending on how long it takes to clear clinical trials and regulatory pathways, to ensure the safety and efficacy of the new innovation. 

Yet, consider the transformative potential of such innovations: enabling faster analysis of clinical scans, accelerating diagnoses and treatment, leading to improved community care of chronic illnesses and allowing hospitals to focus on critical and emergency needs. 

As our healthcare system faces mounting pressures with an ageing population and manpower challenges, fast-tracking such technologies isn’t just a convenience – it’s imperative to meet the urgent and evolving needs of patients. 

How, then, can we accelerate innovation? There need to be greater connections and collaborations through the healthcare ecosystem locally first. 

Strengthening local ties to drive outcomes 

To find a doctor who is also a researcher and engineer, with strong business acumen, is akin to finding a needle in a haystack. But why search for such a person when various experts can collaborate to bring about the same outcome? Our healthcare ecosystem is filled with individuals with such varied skill sets – it’s a matter of getting them to work together. 

This is something that the NHIC has been facilitating over the past decade, working closely with the three healthcare clusters in Singapore to fund and guide promising projects and assemble teams of experts, as well as develop talent.

NHIC launched a scheme in 2022 to address common challenges in the clinical adoption of innovations in digital health and other medical technologies. Overall, NHIC has funded more than 100 projects and supported 25 start-ups that resulted in 16 product launches.

To multiply these efforts, more targeted partnerships, both public-private and international, are needed to take this to the next level. Rather than searching for a needle in a haystack, imagine a thriving ecosystem where each partner champions a unique strength.

By uniting diverse expertise, from ventures and corporates to healthcare leaders and global collaborators, we can collectively propel health-tech development and commercialisation, ensuring every promising idea has the support to flourish.

Paving the way beyond Singapore 

Taking Singapore’s innovation abroad has its challenges. Differing systems, operating environments and regulatory requirements make market access and expansion complex. But we have seen success stories.

One example is Klaro, a surgical lighting device developed by Singapore-based medical technology manufacturer Vivo Surgical. The device has found its way into 23 markets around the world and is being used much more overseas than here, particularly in rural areas where lighting in operating theatres is poor.

Then there is the portable eye-screening tool Selena+, which uses AI to analyse major eye disorders from a simple scan that can be done by non-specialists anywhere in minutes. It has expanded beyond Singapore to be used in Brunei, Saudi Arabia and in Oman’s national screening programme. 

Selena+ was able to leverage local and international networks within the ecosystem to develop both Singaporean and overseas markets concurrently. It was an interplay of partnerships that allowed it to grow.

The collective effort and fresh ideas from clinicians, researchers, corporates, venture capitalists and philanthropies are vital to facilitate knowledge exchange and strengthen the regional innovation landscape. Equally important are deeper inroads into investor relationships, attracting both private and public in-market partners who can provide strategic support for clinical expansion and distribution.

Driving sustainable health-tech innovation and achieving global scalability requires tighter congruence of international partnerships as well. These collaborations can deepen local expertise, tailor resources for different stages of development and identify strategic entry points into high-potential markets.

Closer alignment between innovators and hospital networks – both locally and overseas – would provide essential infrastructure for robust test-bedding and generate real-world evidence for global scaling.

While NHIC will continue to play a key role in supporting the health-tech innovations of clinicians in Singapore, sustainable progress will depend on shared commitment and investment from all stakeholders to co-develop solutions that address the pressing healthcare challenges across the world.