Medtech hub opens with support from healthcare clusters

Singapore

A NEW hub connecting startups, organisations and professionals in the healthcare industry opened its doors to the community on Monday.

The medtech hub, Catalyst, aims to quicken and improve the development of products and services that prevent or cure diseases. It is supported by healthcare clusters SingHealth and the National Healthcare Group, and innovation and enterprise office the National Health Innovation Centre. The third healthcare cluster, National University Health System (NUHS), is in talks to get onboard as a partner as well.

Vivian Balakrishnan, Minister-in-charge of the Smart Nation initiative and also Minister for Foreign Affairs, was at the opening ceremony.

At Catalyst, startups can be matched with clinicians and corporates; they can also find mentors, attend workshops and take part in hackathons. The medtech hub also gives corporates and healthcare professionals exposure to medtech solutions or the opening to start new ventures.

The 3,200 sq ft co-working and events space is located in the Alumni Association Medical Centre in the Singapore General Hospital campus, and is near other healthcare and educational institutions.

More than 10 startups have so far established themselves there; they include ConnectedLife, a wellness and health technology startup targeting the ageing population, heart disease detection firm eko.ai, and Biorithm, a medical device startup addressing the needs of mother and baby during pregnancy.

Catalyst is the brainchild of Aardvark Labs, recently formed by medtech clinicians Lai Kah Weng, co-founder of Precision Medical and ex-chairman of the Alumni Association, Rena Dharmawan, a general surgeon at SingHealth and co-founder of startup Privi Medical, and Ian Mathews, an emergency-medicine physician at National University Health System and medical officer at startup AEvice Health.

Dr Mathews said Catalyst can offer advisory services so that medtech and healthtech startups better understand a patient's entire cycle of care. Trained under the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign programme, he and Dr Dharmawan learned to go beyond identifying a problem; instead, they examine the issues involved and ask, for example: Is the market large enough? Is the science well understood? Are there too many competitors in the market?

The medtech hub will also tap its networks to help startups find the right clinicians to partner for clinical trials - a key milestone for many startups working towards regulatory approvals.

Singapore-based open-innovation firm Padang & Co manages Catalyst, and is responsible for curating startups and running programmes. The company also runs LEVEL3, a co-working space for startups launched with Unilever, with corporations such as Microsoft and Japanese bank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group as ecosystem partners.

Membership prices for Catalyst start at S$50 a month; monthly prices for co-working space - which holds 46 seats - start a S$200 a desk.