Dr Mary Kan, Deputy Programme Director, SB.
To date, Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign having launched more than 50 companies, and impacted over 2.7 million patients worldwid. Impressed with what this program has done for the US MedTech ecosystem, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), the Economic Development Board (EDB) and Stanford University jointly launched The Singapore-Stanford Biodesign (SSB) now renamed as Singapore Biodesign (SB) Programme in 2010. Nearly a decade since its conception, we look at how this program has impacted Asia's health tech.
A Launchpad for health tech innovation
Modeled after the established Biodesign Programme at Stanford University, this capability development initiative was aimed at training and nurturing the next generation of medical technology innovators for Singapore and Asia for the then-nascent ecosystem.
Biodesign originates from the design thinking process. It is essentially a play of 3 I’s Identification of important unmet healthcare needs, Innovation of novel technologies to address them, and the Implementation phase - the subsequent development of business and commercialization plans to bring them into patient care. Biodesign helps with understanding the nuances of commercializing a medical device innovation from a user perspective, including overcoming potential regulatory and reimbursement hurdles.
‘As Singapore was just starting on its journey with a nascent ecosystem in 2010. Biodesign was seen as a way to boost a future innovation economy riding on the rich biomedical research and manufacturing foundations,’ said Dr Mary Kan, Deputy Programme Director, SB.
In the first phase of the programme, the programme focused on talent development, inculcating the design thinking methodology into our flagship fellowship programme which consists of 4 multi-disciplinary (engineers, clinicians and business/industry professionals) fellows each year. These fellows were trained in Stanford, and then returned to Singapore to teach the first joint-post graduate programme to multi-disciplinary students from universities across Singapore, achieving a multiplier talent training effect. The SB Fellowship is an intensive 1-year training.
In addition, SSB ran Biodesign workshops for academia, healthcare institutes and industry from all over the Asia region.
‘The field of medicine has been one of the slowest to be disrupted by technology and digitalization. And for good reason - many industries can afford to "move fast and break things", which is contrary to what traditional medicine teaches of an evidence-based, more cautious approach. However, we know that we have to embrace and lead this disruption, rather than be forced to adopt it later on. The Biodesign fellowship program has been instrumental in helping this disruption by training clinicians like me, who are interested in this intersection of healthcare and technology, to identify technological solutions to patient-centric needs,’ said Dr Ian Matthews, Assistant Group Chief Technology Officer, National University Health System; Chief Medical Officer to AEvice health; Co-founder, Aardvark labs; SB Fellow 2017.
He further added, ‘The opportunities that I have had post-program, in helping MedTech start-ups, working with the hospital technology office, and helping to build the medical technology ecosystem have been incredible and exciting. This would not have been possible for me without the learning, experience, and networks established during the fellowship.’
SB is able to leverage on the global Biodesign community that has been forged through the various official international programmes originating out of Stanford, and the satellite nodes through the Global Faculty Training Programme. Collectively, these centres form the larger Biodesign community that allows SB and its partners to reach out for collaborations. In addition, SB has jointly organized the Biomedical Engineering – Innovation, Design and Entrepreneurship Alliance (BME-IDEA) Asia-Pacific (APAC) annual forum with Stanford Biodesign from 2016 - 2018 to promote best practices in bioengineering training and innovation for Asia.
Increasingly, there has been a greater demand for Asian-centric health technology solutions to increase pati...
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