Asia’s great global economic weight and its significance as an important sales, production and procurement market, especially for German players in the health care sector, will continue to grow dynamically in the future. Not least the COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need and opportunities for global cooperation specifically in this area.

Therefore, the GHA – German Health Alliance and the OAV – German Asia-Pacific Business Association as two of Germany’s major business networking platforms bundled their regional competency and industry expertise.

We founded a joint working group for companies from the pharmaceutical, medical technology, diagnostics, and healthcare sectors with business interests in Asia.

The constituent meeting was held in November 2021 and Dr. Bhuwnesh Agrawal, CEO of Sysmex Inostics GmbH, and Ben Schalke, Director at Midas Pharma GmbH, have been appointed as Co-Chairmen of the Working Group.

Our expert group has set itself the goal of promoting the exchange of experience between German companies and facilitating market development in the Asian healthcare markets. The focus is on current trends and individual challenges in the specific countries of Asia-Pacific region (with the exception of China), which are shaped by demographic development, politics, market growth and competition. In addition, we aim to act as an amplifier to articulate common concerns of its members to the German and Asian governments.

In March 2022, the kick-off event was held online, where German medium-sized and large companies reported on their business experiences in Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.

In August 2022, a second event will focus on regulatory hurdles for business development in medical technology in Japan and Korea.

Last but not least, the expert group plans to host a high-level round table during the World Health Summit in Berlin in October 2022 on “Universal Healthcare Coverage”.

Currently, we are conducting a qualitative survey among members to cluster the individual challenges and to help determine future events in 2023. Undoubtedly, the numerous countries of Asia-Pacific, as well as the diverse sub-industries offer many further topics, which the team around Dr. Agrawal and Mr. Schalke will discuss with the experts.

• Zwei Sitzungen im Jahr, die gemeinsam mit dem OAV – German Asia-Pacific Business Association durchgeführt werden
• Vorbereitung, Unterstützung und Durchführung von Delegationsbesuchen (incoming & outgoing)
• Enge Verzahnung mit den GHA-Fachgruppen und GHA-Arbeitsgruppen EZ in Gesundheit und Globale Gesundheit
• Jour fixe der AG-Vorsitzenden mit dem Vorstand
• Kurzbericht der AG durch die Vorsitzenden im Rahmen der jährlichen GHA-Mitgliedertagung
• Aufbau und Nutzung eines eigenen E-Mail-Verteilers Gesundheit Asien für die AG-Mitglieder über die GHA-Website und -Newsletterfunktion