As the Philippine government pushes towards the implementation of the Universal Health Care (UHC) Law to advance every Filipino’s right to health, there is a need to harness modern technology to enable better access to quality health care.

In support of the UHC’s goals for a healthier country, RiteMED Philippines, Inc. (RiteMED) has partnered with Heal Venture Lab (HVL), a Singapore-based venture focused on bringing capital and medical innovation to the Asia Pacific region with social impact goals in mind.

The strength of the partnership between RiteMED, as the country’s leading unibranded generic company, and HVL’s expertise in boosting health technology in key areas such as market entry, product prototyping, distribution and investor networks could bring a significant impact on bringing affordable and quality healthcare to more Filipino communities.

Tapping Filipino Ingenuity

One of the major potentials to make the UHC vision a reality is to encourage young entrepreneurs and even Filipino students to develop transformative solutions to address local health care challenges. A strong focus on the young and progressive sector in the field of STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) can help in developing technology in the form of affordable equipment for diagnostics and advanced treatments.

HVL has a network of partners with established healthcare industry companies, challengers, and disruptors around Asia, with a vision of holistic ecosystem support for improvement in healthcare access and affordability.

Dr. Jaemin Park, HVL’s Managing Partner, says that their “hub-and-spoke” model enables support for local and international innovators to bring their products and expertise into the country.

Among the projects in the pipeline for the partnership between HVL and RiteMED is a series of events to link STEM students and young entrepreneurs with potential partners in health tech development such as national and local government agencies.

Dr. Park explains why technology has become increasingly important in the field of health.

“During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, we experienced lack of hospital beds and infrastructure.

Previously there was a resistance to telehealth from healthcare executives but when Covid hit, everybody needed telehealth. We need to keep evolving to make healthcare more accessible and relevant to more people.”

He adds that UHC is achievable.

“At present, local manufacturing for health-related equipment in the Philippines is very little to non-existent. It is lagging behind countries like Vietnam, Thailand and even Indonesia which are building biomedical hubs to support the healthcare needs in their own countries.”

Our goal is to drive the young entrepreneurs and the student community to come up with models and tech-based solutions for affordable and quality products in healthcare, including diagnostics.”

RiteMED President Jose Maria Ochave said, “RiteMED has always been about quality and affordability. With this partnership, we can support the Department of Health and the Department of Science and Technology, along with other allied agencies in identifying companies that have relevant and advanced technology that can be used to address our people’s health needs. This is part of our commitment to support the effective, efficient and equitable implementation of the UHC.”