Pharmaceutical News
Healthcare drives biotechnology development
2020/02/07

The World Health Organization’s World Population Prospects report noted that nations across the globe are facing the common challenges of aging populations, tumbling birthrates and shrinking labor pools, which are expected to contribute further drops to dependency ratios.

As the number of older people increase, governments have begun prioritizing the development of solutions that help with the provision of care and preventative measures.

The report said that as populations grow larger and older, impacts to nations’ social welfare systems are expected to become increasingly significant, leading to greater urgency to come up with contingency policies for the global challenge.

Against the backdrop of plummeting dependency ratios, the drive to leverage smart technologies to create assistive solutions that help with reducing and managing limited manpower have resulted in new concept products being introduced in recent international biotechnology and healthcare exhibitions held in Taiwan. Apart from the glimpse of the future of global trends in smart healthcare, the latest board of directors election at the Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry, which has representation from 11 notable technology companies, is indicative of the growing ties between the medical and technology sectors. Technology companies including Qisda, Compal, Quanta and Hon Hai Precision Industry have all actively made investments to help Taiwan’s digital and smart healthcare space find its next breakthrough. Although these efforts have yet to produce significant results, they are invaluable in forming a nascent industry ecosystem in Taiwan.

Driven by aging populations, emerging trends in the biomedical industries have become the top picks for investments. An Industrial Technology Research Institute research report on 2020 investment trends in the biomedical industries listed assistive devices, biomaterials, precision medicine and preventative medicine as being driven by aging populations.

[2020-01-28 / ETtoday ]