Viewing healthtech through a wider aperture
- Healthtech is an area that more people have been caring about; After all, the best investment one can make is in their own health.
- With the projected total healthcare spending in Southeast Asia soaring to US$740B by 2025, up from US$420B in 2018, the healthtech landscape in the region is set to evolve to meet the health needs of everyone.
- Southeast Asia’s healthtech players cover an array of sub-verticals like personal health management, long-term illness management, telemedicine, devices, appointment booking, diagnostic test providers, health and wellness information, healthcare IT, digital repository, online pharmacy, and B2B marketplaces.
- Khailee Ng, Managing Partner, 500 Global, believes we need to shift beyond a “healthtech” stereotype; He believes the future of healthcare is self care, which explains why the health-themed companies 500 Southeast Asia has backed have a wider aperture.
- According to Tech in Asia, most of Southeast Asia’s healthtech companies continue to be based in Singapore and Indonesia. While the majority of healthtech companies headquartered in Singapore operate in multiple markets in and beyond the region, Indonesian startups are doubling down on their domestic markets.
- One reason for this could be market size. Firms based in Singapore typically use the city-state as a launchpad to break into the rest of the region while their counterparts in Indonesia have a larger domestic consumer base to fall back on.
- “Healthtech players are also solving different problems in these countries. In Indonesia, most still focus on democratizing access to healthcare providers,” shares Khailee. “An effective solution to democratizing access to doctors and clinics requires companies to be hyperlocal, rather than expand across borders.”
- Read the full analysis on Southeast Asia’s healthtech landscape here.
