Why bet on healthcare, longevity and medical innovation (2)

For next-generation family leaders, healthcare and longevity investment solves an intergenerational problem. It combines social impact, stable returns and reputation capital. A diagnostic hub, a wellness resort, or an AI-enabled telehealth platform may not match condo margins, but it compounds value through relevance and trust — assets that outlast market cycles.

In Singapore, several third-generation heirs now run life-science or medtech investment arms under their family offices. They view healthcare and longevity as a strategic hedge — an industry immune to retail disruption yet aligned with the biggest demographic certainty in Asia: aging populations.

Philippine families can follow that lead. With healthcare demand rising, AI advancing, and wellness becoming part of mainstream consumer behavior, early movers can build diversified portfolios blending property, service operations  and technology.

What needs to change

Three shifts are essential:

1. Mindset—move from “owning hospitals” to “building integrated healthcare and wellness ecosystems.”

2. Partnerships — work with credible operators, technologists, and medtech experts, not just contractors.

3. Governance — insist on measurable health outcomes and transparent business                     structures; healthcare cannot be managed like a political franchise.

The capital and leadership already exist. What’s missing is the connective tissue — the orchestrators who can bridge investment capital, medical science and operational execution.

A call to the new generation

The next generation of Filipino family leaders face a historic opportunity: To redefine legacy through health, longevity and innovation. The region’s most successful families are already repositioning their wealth around these themes — not for charity, but because they are the most resilient forms of capital.

The future of Asian healthcare will belong not to governments or donors, but to families bold enough to build systems that heal, not just structures that sell.

(Jaemin Park is Managing Partner of Heal Venture Lab, a Singapore-based venture platform that builds cross-border healthcare and medical innovation across Asia, working with hospitals, investors and family offices to bridge medical innovation, AI technologies and sustainable healthcare delivery in emerging markets. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of the Philippines College of Public Health.)