The Growth of the Medical Technology Manufacturing Industry in Singapore

The United Nations statistics on aging population predicts the number of people aged 60 and above to increase from 629 million to 2 billion by the year 2050. Such a trend sets a rising demand for better quality health care systems and solutions (EDB Singapore, 2009). However the rapid escalating health care costs worldwide especially in Western countries has led to international Medical Technology (Med Tech) companies to actively explore outsourcing options in Asia (EDB Singapore, 2009).

Singapore provides an ideal base in Asia for Med Tech companies to design, develop, test-bed and launch innovative products and solutions for the regional and global markets (EDB Singapore, 2009). Singapore’s establishment of strong track record of compliance, quality and foundation in biomedical sciences manufacturing and R&D activities, the large pool of global and local talents, the city-state’s use of English as its lingua franca, its effective supply chain, its strategic location at the heart of Asia within a seven-hour flight radius from other Asian cities, its world-class logistics network, its competitive tax environment as well as its network of Free Trade Agreement (FTA), are some of the reasons for established Med Tech companies to set up commercial operations, R&D centers and manufacturing facilities in Singapore (EDB Singapore, 2009; Medical Product Outsourcing, 2008).

Today, 17 of the world’s leading medical technology companies such as Applied Biosystems, Affymetrix, Baxter International, Becton Dickinson, Bio-Rad, Biosensors International, Ciba Vision, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Hoya Healthcare, Hill-Rom, Qiagen, Japan Medical Supply, Siemens Medical Instruments, etc have invested in more than 20 manufacturing plants in Singapore (EDB Singapore, 2009; Medical Product Outsourcing, 2008). They develop and manufacture a wide variety of medical products like contact lenses, research instruments, scientific analytical equipment, implantables, syringes, catheters and hearing aids here. Singapore is one of the leading global sites that supplies 70% of the world’s microarrays and 50% of the Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) instruments. Singapore furthers its efforts to grow the Med Tech sector in the areas of cardiovascular, eye care, diagnostic, imaging, research tools, scientific instruments and orthopedics (Medical Product Outsourcing, 2008).

Image:Flickr/A Medical Device