They are looking at devices for renal function repair equipment. This is a key area in the Chinese group because it consumes a lot of national government insurance coverage. The second key area is lung diseases or the COPD. The third focus area is the minimally-invasive surgical tools and procedure. Then, there are dental devices or equipment, such as implants and a lot of dental service-related biomaterials. The last one is IVD or point-of-care in vitro diagnostics.

Are the focus areas in line with the China market?

China is one of the target areas. However, in between we do see the far east countries too. In Mainland China, we still have to deal with technology transfer. This is going to be approved very soon because cross-straits negotiations have come to a stage where both sides want more collaborations. But the IP should be brought into discussion at the very beginning before any real action is employed.

What according to you will be the big trends in medical devices in 2013?

In Taiwan a lot of companies will work on mobile healthcare, self-care or personalized care for self-alerting. These types of devices will have a good growth in 2013 because the technology is already there. They may not be called medical devices but they are self-alerting medical accessories or assistive devices.

What do you think is the biggest challenge for the industry?

The government support is there. However, the difficulty or hurdle has been in going to the physician. Physicians have to be convinced that some of the devices can provide early surveillance. The doctors can then take decisions without any questions asked. This reduces the effort a doctor spends on each patient. The government is supposed to support a good data system or a cloud service, something like a health cloud or a wellness cloud. These will come up very soon because a lot of these ICT companies already have the capability.