In our May 2011 issue, PEM talked to Billy Ooi, group chief executive officer of local company Prodelcon Sdn Bhd, a wholly owned subsidiary of AIC Corporation, about his foray into the promising but untapped sector of medical devices manufacturing in Malaysia. This second instalment draws parallels between the E&E industry and the medical devices industry, and discusses how Penang learns from the former to become a high-value medical devices manufacturing hub.
The healthcare industry
The healthcare industry is a robust and stable industry, comprising several sectors which are dedicated to providing healthcare services and products. Apart from primary activities which focus on human wellbeing, it also includes the high-technology aspect of medical equipment, instrumentation, biotechnology studies and applications, diagnostic laboratories and pharmaceutical industries which include substance and drug manufacturing and delivery. A helicopter perspective of the larger healthcare economy demonstrates the three main subsectors to be pharmaceuticals and biotech; medical devices and medical technology; and private sector healthcare travel. It is resilient to economic cycles and this high margin industry has been dominated by the highly developed countries.
