Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), which has intensified efforts to extend its reach beyond contract production, has set its sights on the Southeast Asian market for digital healthcare devices, a senior company official said yesterday.
The company would use the Taiwanese market as a launchpad for digital healthcare device development, and is planning to test the waters in the Southeast Asian market next year at the earliest, Chiang Chih-hsiung (姜志雄), head of the iPhone assembler’s B business group, told reporters.
Chiang made the comments after Hon Hai earlier in the day signed an agreement with Taiwan Biophotonic Corp (臺醫光電) and the government-sponsored Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工業技術研究院) to develop a long-distance healthcare monitoring platform.
Photo: CNA
Under the agreement, the three partners are to build a digital healthcare ecosystem in Taiwan.
Hon Hai aims to take advantage of its strength in information and communications technology to develop digital healthcare devices and create value-added smart medicare gadgets, Chiang said.
The company’s vision involves developing a long-distance healthcare monitoring platform by integrating its hardware and software expertise, as well as the physical and virtual technologies it has mastered, including app interfaces and cloud-based applications, to help medical personnel monitor patients from a distance, he said.
Before entering the Southeast Asian market, Hon Hai is expected to conduct a clinical test for the monitoring platform that would last about one year, Chiang said, adding that the new system would need to be certified by the health authorities in the markets it enters.
ITRI executive vice president Alex Peng (彭裕民) said that the establishment of the Taiwan Integrated Biomedical Industrial Center by the Ministry of Economic Affairs paved the way for closer ties with Hon Hai and Taiwan Biophotonic.
The three are expected to conduct clinical tests for the monitoring platform in New Taipei City’s Tucheng Hospital, Peng said.
Negotiations are also being held with Chang Gung Memorial Hospital and several elderly care centers for broader cooperation, in a bid to accelerate the speed at which new devices hit the local market and enter international markets, Peng added.
Chiang said that Hon Hai would seek further cooperation in developing heartbeat, blood oxygen and blood sugar monitors, as well as electrocardiography devices.
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