Simone Song was happily leading Goldman Sachs's healthcare investment banking for Greater China when the results of a health check changed her outlook in life. Wanting to dedicate the rest of her career to support innovative healthcare companies that are addressing the world's biggest diseases, she established ORI Capital, a venture capital firm focused on investing in innovative companies in the healthcare industry globally. Simone joins me this week to share about her journey, and ORI's investing philosophies.  And also artificial intelligence. Topics we explored: - How Simone’s health ..read more

Who wants to be a biotech journalist? Amber Tong, Senior Editor of Endpoints News, joins the Asia Healthcare Podcast to share her origin story and what it’s like covering China healthcare. Topics we explored: - How did Amber get her start in journalism - First impressions of biotech reporting - What's fun versus not so fun about China biotech reporting - Our favorite reading material / source of biotech news and analysis for Asia - Comparing the interview styles of China vs US/Europe biotech executives - Advice for future journalists writing about healthcare Amber's latest special reports: R ..read more

A serious heart infection caused by a supposedly rare non-pathogenic bacteria landed me in the hospital for a month. This is my story of how I survived a critical illness. Topics explored: - What is Infective Endocarditis (IE)? - What are the odds of getting IE? - What diagnostic tests did I undergo? - Why you should go to a private hospital for acute events - General tips for protecting yourself and staying healthy Useful links: Infective Endocarditis – National Organization for Rare Disorders (NORD) https://rarediseases.org/rare-diseases/endocarditis-infective/ Heart Valves and Infective E ..read more

Did you know that roughly only 2% of healthcare spending goes into diagnostic testing? And yet it informs the majority of our clinical decisions. Lance Little, managing director of Roche Diagnostics APAC and board member of APACMed joins me this week to discuss the pandemic preparedness of Asia’s healthcare systems, and the role of diagnostics in the future of healthcare. Topics we explored: - How has Asia responded to the pandemic so far? - What factors can really impact how well a country contain an outbreak? - Is our current healthcare system setup vulnerable to sudden shocks like pandemic ..read more

In 2015, Piers Ingram co-founded Hummingbird Bioscience, a clinical-stage biotech company in Singapore. Leading a team of interdisciplinary scientists, the company believes that there is a better way to deliver a new generation of transformative medicine: by harnessing powerful modern approaches to systems biology and data science to better understand disease mechanisms and how to treat these, through the development of rationally engineered bio-therapeutics. Piers joins us to talk about his experience in Asia and starting Hummingbird to develop drugs that go after 'hard targets' in cancer and ..read more

Ying Huang spent 9 years in drug R&D and 12 years as a biotech analyst. He signed up to be Legend Biotech's CFO, but 17 months later he was named CEO. In this episode, I catch up with Ying about his transition into CEO at Legend. We also talk about cilta-cel and the new clinical trial data the company will be presenting at this year’s American Society of Hematology (ASH) meeting, and his reflections on 2020. * Cilta-cel is an investigational chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cell therapy, formerly identified as JNJ-4528 in the U.S. and Europe and LCAR-B38M in China, that is being studied ..read more

As of this recording, we are on our way to hitting 45 million cases of Covid-19 worldwide, the majority of those have recovered but new cases are still rising in most countries and if anything, this year’s pandemic has really highlighted how vulnerable our healthcare systems can be. Even before the emergence of Covid-19, many countries faced challenges in providing equitable healthcare access to all of their population. Today on the show, we explore what healthcare systems in the APAC region look like and why it’s important for different stakeholders to work together to find ways to improve th ..read more

Science parks – sometimes called research parks, innovation parks, or hi-tech parks – exist to provide an open and collaborative environment for innovative companies to connect and potentially form partnerships to accelerate the research and development of technologies and solutions of the future. But what happens when a global pandemic forces the world into a state of physical distancing? Shonan Health Innovation Park (iPark) is one of the few science and technology ‘hotspots’ in Asia today. Founded in 2018, Takeda Pharmaceuticals transformed its previous Shonan research site into Shonan iPar ..read more

Just a quick update: - AHP lands on the 20th spot of a list of top healthcare podcasts. - Carrying out the mission of supporting Asia's healthcare industry. - Can you support the podcast? - Mulling a podcast website and video content. - Also testing out some music. Top 35 Healthcare Industry and News Podcasts By Health Professionals in 2020 [As of Jul 25, 2020] Follow the Asia Healthcare Podcast! https://siryn.co/asia-healthcare-podcast https://anchor.fm/asiahealthcare Twitter: @jchanpharma ..read more

Alzheimer's disease is one of the world's leading causes of death, with 50 million people suffering from the disease worldwide. The global pharmaceutical industry has spent billions of dollars on drug R&D but 99% of clinical trials have failed. Part of the reason could be that most drug developers have focused on targeting beta amyloid, a protein that accumulates in the brain of Alzheimer's patients. This approach has not worked out so far, but scientists have been exploring other theories about the disease and developing treatments based on these other theories. Cerecin (formerly known as ..read more