Asia-Pacific Area Drives Global Healthcare Innovation

The dynamic healthcare landscape of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) will show strong growth momentum throughout 2015. These are the latest findings of Frost & Sullivan (Frost, London, United Kingdom), an international market research firm.

Several factors are driving market growth, particularly in areas of new entities, investments, and products. One of them is home health integration, the introduction of healthcare monitoring to the home or wearable devices. This merger of healthcare and technology has already happened in countries such as the United States and South Korea, and it is expected to take off in countries like Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Telecommunication companies will be one of the potential platform partners who can address this need, by leveraging brand name and existing services.

The potential synergy of certain segments, such as medical devices and consumables within the ASEAN region, will also potentially see more manufacturing investments taking place, with strong support from governments around the region. Health technology assessments will also start to be implemented, and will have an impact on the pricing and availability of newer healthcare products. This will also incur stronger regulatory focus on policies and practices linked to protecting the consumers.

The increasing urbanization of the ASEAN countries will result in the surfacing of healthcare delivery challenges, with public hospitals in urban areas especially overburdened. A growing middle class with varying levels of healthcare needs and affordability will lead to tiered services offerings under the same umbrella hospital group, catering to different customer segments with varying levels of affordability. Frost and Sullivan predict the Asia Pacific region (excluding Japan) will continue to provide double digit growth in 2015 at 11%, compared to the global average of 5%, reaching a value of USD 150 billion by 2017.

“With the aim to shift patient loads from hospitals to primary care, governments in South East Asia are driving initiatives to create a more robust primary healthcare sector, even while they focus on improving basic healthcare access and services,” said Rhenu Bhuller, senior vice president of healthcare at Frost & Sullivan Asia Pacific. “The industry is mired in a transitional phase where traditional global markets have been exhausted for growth, yet the opportunities for new services and care lack the appropriate level of development and infrastructure to seamlessly launch novel solutions.”

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