The Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC) helped the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) reach a research agreement with AI Medical Service (AIM) – a Japanese medical start-up which develops artificial intelligence (AI) endoscopic diagnostic technology – to accelerate development, promote it in Hong Kong and enhance clinical application in other Asian economies.
Interest in healthcare and medical developments continues to grow, as economies worldwide recover from the COVID-19 crisis. Market leaders and industry players again congregated at the HKTDC Hong Kong International Medical and Healthcare Fair showcasing medical trends and innovations. Now in its 13th edition, the fair continued to draw an international crowd, including representatives from the Consulates General of Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, and the United States. The physical-online hybrid format, in which the event was conducted, encouraged both on-site and online interactions.
Hong Kong earlier this month hosted its second Asia Summit on Global Health (ASGH), as the city continues to garner international attention after further loosening COVID-19 restrictions. This year’s theme – “Charting a New Course in Healthcare through Collaboration” resonated strongly with Dr Zsuzsanna Jakab (main picture), Deputy Director-General of the World Health Organization. In her video speech at the event’s opening session, Dr Jakab said the pandemic had infected more than 600 million people globally and claimed 6.5 million lives, so there was an “opportunity and, indeed, an obligation to learn from this pandemic” and accelerate progress on universal healthcare through concerted efforts in science, research, innovation, data and digital technologies.
A serial entrepreneur based in Hong Kong for more than 20 years, France-born Sophie Martineau set up her medical supplies business Aquila Healthcare under the brand AquilaVIE in 2020. The launch was in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, when demand for personal protective equipment (PPE) such as masks rapidly outpaced supply.
As an international financial centre, Hong Kong is an ideal development base for many overseas enterprises – and the city’s attraction is enhanced by the comprehensive protection its intellectual property laws provide. Some well-known Japanese chain drugstores have chosen to open stores in Hong Kong, and have applied for trademark registration to enhance consumers' recognition of their brands.
A team from the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Medicine has developed patent technologies that can help pharmaceutical companies improve vaccine effectiveness of their products and efficiency of developing vaccines. The start-up has already signed cooperation agreements with a number of pharmaceutical companies to co-develop vaccines.
The parasitic alien life form is a favourite theme for sci-fi film producers – the Venom and Alien series are two examples that come to mind. In a case of science imitating art, a team of Hong Kong-based researchers have drawn inspiration from Venom to develop a therapeutic invasive slime.
As populations age and grow wealthier, and with birth rates in decline, the world has seen a strong growth in demand for healthcare in recent years. The outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020 gave a new urgency to the need to improve accessibility to healthcare and advance treatment outcomes.
Restrictions on movement and face-to-face interactions during the COVID-19 pandemic have created demand for remote health monitoring, particularly for vulnerable people such as those living in residential care homes. Hong Kong start-up PanopticAI is stepping into this breach, and the enterprise’s efforts made it a 2021 winner of Start-up Express, an entrepreneurship development programme run by the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC).
Good vision is critical for children’s development, which makes early diagnosis and treatment of eye-related problems important. But eye specialists are familiar with issues associated with testing young children’s vision as the charts can be hard to understand, especially for toddlers.
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