Hong Kong’s regulatory support, connector role appeal to investors, medical tech firms say
InvestHK has assisted nine medical technology companies to set up or expand their businesses, attracting US$7.7 million of investments
Hong Kong offers strong regulatory support for foreign companies seeking to establish their operations in the city, some investors said. Its role as a connector between mainland China and the global markets is also burnishing its appeal as a hub for medical technology firms.
That is the case for Time Medical, a Hong Kong-based medical imaging company spun off from Columbia University, its chief operating officer Simon Yeung said. The company faced a regulatory approval process as long as five years for its magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine for babies in the US, but performing preparatory work in Hong Kong helped reduced the process to just a few months, he added.
That is a credit to InvestHK, a government agency tasked with attracting foreign investment to the financial hub, which helped Yeung and his team to get their business up and running.
“We had a very good talk to InvestHK so that we knew what to do beforehand,” Yeung said. “The groundwork was done in Hong Kong, including all the testing and the clinical trials” which sped up the vetting process, he added.
