Report by Galen Growth finds that 2019 was another strong year for HealthTech in the Asia Pacific Region.
In Galen Growth’s 2019 Year End Asia Pacific HealthTech Investment Landscape report, a bi-annual reference for key trends and insights for investors, enterprises and start-ups, found that the Asia Pacific region maintained its strong performance in the fourth quarter of 2019. This result is attributed to another US$ 1 billion worth of investments in HealthTech companies. Upon reaching the close of the year, US$ 5 billion was garnered, beating the projections made in October 2019, demonstrating the region’s resilience in withstanding geopolitical and domestic headwinds.
Another key trend in Asia Pacific is the maturing funding pipeline towards larger deals. Although there was a shrinkage in Early Stage and Series A deal activity. Despite this, Series B deal value continued to grow, seizing 33 percent of total funding in 2019.
Southeast Asia in particular showed record-breaking investments in 2019 with US$ 266 million. This was a growth of 2.25 times and reflects expansion and progressive growth of the HealthTech ecosystem in the region. Singapore and Indonesia together comprised approximately 93 percent of the total funding value invested in 2019.
Meanwhile, HealthTech investment activity in China dropped significantly by 37 percent to US$ 3.4 billion in 2019. However still remains the top funder with the largest number of deals across the HealthTech ecosystem and mainland Chinese investors making up the bulk of the top ten HealthTech investments across Asia Pacific.
India was a lead performer in 2019, which broke funding records for HealthTech, closing at US$ 723 million. At the same time also closed its largest single deal ever after PharmEasy raised US$ 220 million in November 2019.
Commenting on the report, Julien de Salaberry, CEO and Founder of Galen Growth, said, “Industry and investor sentiment for HealthTech in the Asia Pacific continues to be strong. A greater number of enterprise business leaders confirmed that HealthTech is a high priority, whilst investors’ likelihood of investing in HealthTech in the region has grown further.”
Galen Growth’s 2019 Year End Asia Pacific HealthTech Investment Landscape report was powered by the company’s proprietary HealthTech Alpha analytics platform. At a more holistic level of the HealthTech ecosystem, Galen Growth also works with leading Fortune 500 corporations’ innovation teams to fast track their digital health strategies and has partnered with Asia’s most active corporates in the HealthTech ecosystem through the Galen Growth Open Innovation Council. Now in its third year, Asia’s only HealthTech open innovation programme is dedicated to bringing together promising start-ups with leading organisations to scale proven solutions.
“It’s sometimes really hard to evaluate a start-up just based on its sales pitch. It is important to get the background and research around it so that we can pursue a partnership with them. Not a lot of work is being done in this space apart from Galen Growth, who has added a lot of value in helping us scout partnerships with different innovative start-ups”, said Jo Peddhinti, Head, Digital Marketing & Innovation at Sanofi. [APBN]