Advanced MedTech enters new phase as independent firm, but says it's 'business as usual'

Singapore

ADVANCED MedTech Holdings - the medical device company formerly known as Accuron MedTech Group - is entering a new phase in its history as an independent company, said group chief executive Abel Ang.

He expressed confidence that the company was well prepared for its next stage of development and growth.

"We have actually been a subsidiary of the Accuron Group since the beginning. We were always at the fringes of the larger group," he told The Business Times in an interview on Friday.

"Now that we are standalone, it's an opportunity for us to really shape our destiny."

Seeing continuity as a pre-requisite for stability, he stressed that the organisational structure of Advanced MedTech would remain the same, with no changes to the names of its wholly owned subsidiaries.

This is because despite being under Accuron Technologies previously, Advanced MedTech had operated as an independent entity for the past four years, with its own board of directors and audit committee.

"It's business as usual," said Mr Ang on how the running of the company would change from now on. "As we were already functioning as an independent entity, we have already gone through a lot of the effort of transitioning".

Established in 1997, Advanced MedTech is currently the largest medical device business in South-east Asia, and focuses primarily on urology devices and services.

Headquartered in Singapore, with operations in the US, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, China, Malaysia and Japan, the company serves millions of patients and physicians in 100 countries around the world.

After a largely stagnant growth rate in its first 18 years, Advanced MedTech took off in 2014 when it gained autonomy from Accuron. Revenue growth rates stand at 26.6 per cent, while organic growth rates in Asia are at 14 per cent.

With the medical technology industry becoming very much an arms race to produce the most efficient and modern machinery, Mr Ang acknowledged the importance of staying ahead of the curve in terms of innovation.

"What (Advanced MedTech subsidiary) AMT does is make products on behalf of the big robotics manufacturers. This gives us a view of what other people are doing," he said.

Aside from AMT, Advanced MedTech opened a new S$10 million technology centre in Tuas in September last year, with the aim of boosting innovation.

"The technology centre is really to make a big push into robotic surgery. This is where the whole medical device business is: more AI, more intelligence, more robotics. That's where the whole industry is going," he said.

"We also regularly bring over the very top companies in this field, and they sit down and innovate with us. They come to our technology centre and we brainstorm and co-create the next generation of these robotic surgery components."

In a statement on Monday to announce the rebranding, Mr Ang said: "2019 is set to be an exciting year as we look forward to developing and commercialising more innovative treatments, delivering above-market growth, and advancing to take on bigger challenges in global healthcare."