From clinical trials to commercialization, Taiwan offers a rare alignment of talent, infrastructure, and investor appetite for the MedTech sector.

Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) system may be absent from the formal rankings of major international organizations, but it continues to earn strong recognition elsewhere. In 2025, Taiwan topped the crowd-sourced Numbeo Health Care Index for the seventh consecutive year — a reflection of high public confidence in the system’s affordability, equipment, and medical staff.

This public sentiment is echoed in the 2024 OECD Health at a Glance report, which again placed Taiwan among the region’s leaders in healthcare access and lowest unmet medical needs. While Taiwan is not an OECD member, its inclusion in the 2024 rankings — and its position among the region’s top performers — speaks volumes about the system’s effectiveness and the necessity of recognizing its role in advancing equitable healthcare.

These high healthcare standards are increasingly seen as complementing Taiwan’s tech prowess, with accelerators and venture capital (VC) firms exploring opportunities at the intersection of the two fields: MedTech startups.

“MedTech is definitely a growing field in Taiwan, especially with the government and private sector both pushing for more innovation in healthcare,” says Anita Chen, chief of international affairs at Startup Terrace, an agency under the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA). “There’s increasing interest from investors in areas like digital health, AI-assisted diagnostics, and remote care solutions.”

The integration of the semiconductor industry with ICT companies, combined with Taiwan’s expertise in manufacturing, provides a solid foundation for expansion into MedTech, says Vivian Lu, strategic partnership and marketing director at BE Health, a Taiwan-based MedTech and HealthTech accelerator and strategic investment platform.

“When you combine those skillsets with one of the world’s largest single-payer healthcare systems, you have three major advantages that make Taiwan a good destination for medical device startups,” Lu says.

By offering various programs that support startups from proof-of-concept to clinical validation and market entry, BE Health aims to be a gateway to Asia for MedTech startups. Through its collaboration with Show Chwan Health Care System (SCHS), Taiwan’s largest privately owned hospital group, BE Health facilitates access to IRCAD Taiwan, the biggest advanced laparoscopy (keyhole surgery) training center in Asia.

The Strasbourg-based IRCAD (Institut de Recherche contre les Cancers de l’Appareil Digestif, or Institute for Research into Cancer of the Digestive System) is one of the world’s leading centers for training, research, and innovation into minimally invasive surgical techniques. Established as the first branch outside France, IRCAD Taiwan opened in 2008 at Chang Bing Show Chwan Health Park in Lukang Township, Changhua County.

Another important partnership is with Taipei Medical University (TMU), the lead academic partner in the Stanford Biodesign Taiwan program, a localized extension of Stanford University’s initiative in health technology innovation.

Through this collaboration, startups gain access to “user-centered design expertise, clinical mentorship, and academic insight that aligns with global MedTech innovation standards,” says Lu. As part of the program, TMU also established a dedicated Biodesign Center in 2021, focusing on further identifying unmet clinical needs and developing innovative technologies to address them.

Cooperation with institutions such as SCHS and TMU gives startups hands-on opportunities to validate solutions and highlights the flexibility Taiwan’s healthcare environment offers international MedTech startups.

“Taiwanese hospitals can provide clinical trials and do IRB (Institutional Review Board) submission in a very short time,” says Lu. “The cost and quality are comparable to Australia, even when accounting for the tax refund that Australia offers for clinical trials.”

Paving the way for connected care

Strategic partnerships are driving healthcare innovation, paving the way for groundbreaking advancements. Lu points to a recent alliance of four private hospitals — Chung Shan Medical University Hospital, Taipei Medical University Hospital, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital, and E-Da Hospital — to unify clinical trial protocols. This collaboration allows MedTech startups to use a standardized format and data to apply for trials within these systems.

“I think that’s really frontier, even by global standards,” she says.

One startup supporting the goal of data uniformity is AESOP Technology, a TMU spinoff. The company focuses on AI-powered solutions to improve patient safety and clinical workflows by optimizing prescription review and medical coding validation. By leveraging extensive medical datasets from sources such as the NHI and the Mayo Clinic, AESOP’s technologies help prevent prescription errors and identify incorrect diagnosis and surgery codes, reducing billing errors and improving hospital reimbursement accuracy.

An early investor in AESOP, BE Health secured additional backing from Taiwania Capital and 500 Global, enabling AESOP to develop tools like MedGuard and DxPrime. These tools seamlessly integrate with electronic health record (EHR) systems in Taiwan, the United States, and China.

For Jarvis Lin, co-founder of ST Medical Technology, a startup specializing in medical informatics, government grants and resources for healthcare professionals serve as strong incentives for innovation. “We have very talented doctors in Taiwan, and there are numerous research and innovation programs motivating them to achieve more,” says Lin.

“If you want the best CP (cost-performance) value, Taiwan’s medical manufacturers are a good choice,” Lin says. He cites Wistron Medical Technology as an example, noting that this subsidiary of the Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Wistron Corporation guarantees proven quality at similar prices to the consumer products of its parent company. “They offer the same manufacturing quality they use for iPhones, but at competitive costs for medical clients,” he says.

Noting that most of Taiwan’s major ICT multinationals also have their own dedicated medical subsidiaries, Lin says the MedTech sector is a lucrative prospect. “While the revenues are lower than with consumer products, the margins are much higher in the medical field,” he says.

“These companies are always looking for the next driving engine, so most big 3C product manufacturers open medical BUs (business units), which can leverage existing supply chains, manufacturing capabilities, and bargaining power with suppliers,” Lin adds.  

Driving change at scale

Taiwan’s MedTech advantages have been bolstered by the government’s recent announcement of an NT$48.9 billion (US$1.7 billion) injection into the NHI system under the Healthy Taiwan Cultivation Plan. A key strand of this will be the integration of smart medical technology into clinical care.

“Almost every healthcare supplier is involved,” says ST Medical’s Lin. “It’s a huge pie with lots of pieces for decent players, and these technologies create a better healthcare environment.”

Lin’s diverse background highlights the multidisciplinary nature of Taiwan’s MedTech industry, where doctors and engineers must not only develop their minimum viable product (MVP) but also learn how to position and promote it effectively to secure seed funding. At the same time, venture capital firms must assess the business potential of these complex medical technologies.

Another individual who brings a range of interrelated experiences to MedTech investment is Johnny Yu, managing director of Mosaic Venture Lab, an accelerator that assists digital healthcare startups, among others, with access to overseas markets and VC funding.

Having graduated from TMU with a major in pharmacy, Yu later pursued an MBA in the UK, working on business development for pharmaceutical multinationals such as GSK and Merck before returning to Taiwan to help establish two private equity funds for Yuanta Financial Holdings. 

In 2023, Yu founded CellTech, a startup focused on cell and gene therapy, which he describes as “an emerging sector in Taiwan and Asia.” While CellTech primarily targets the Asia region, the aim with Mosaic is “to create a cross-border ecosystem” for startups, he says. Through its mentoring program, Mosaic connects Taiwanese startups with hospitals, accelerators, and venture capital firms in the United States, while also assisting these emerging MedTech companies in navigating the insurance system and overcoming regulatory challenges.

“A lot of MedTech startups hesitate to enter the U.S. market because they don’t know what might happen if they set up a subsidiary without investment, without government support, and without the whole ecosystem to help them with the regulatory approval process,” says Yu.

For this reason, Mosaic has engaged the MOEA and the National Development Fund to offer grants and support to startups hoping to make an impact abroad. The turn to foreign markets partly boils down to the lengthy and complex review process that MedTech startups face for reimbursement applications from Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Administration. New drugs and medical devices must pass the Health Technology Assessment under the Center for Drug Evaluation, which is challenging.

“If you want reimbursement, it takes a lot of data and time to convince them,” says Yu. “And that’s a huge barrier for startups because they don’t have money to conduct these trials.”

However, these hurdles aren’t insurmountable, thanks to the range of government bodies that might back important innovation. “If we do it out-of-pocket, we could still leverage support from the national Health Promotion Administration,” says Yu.

He gives the example of cardiovascular-related disease prevention, which usually involves regular blood pressure or cholesterol level checks.

“This isn’t very efficient, so we can help through patient awareness programs with rapid screening,” he says. “I believe the Health Promotion Bureau would be happy to do that because it’s cost-effective and helps early detection for life-threatening diseases.” As part of such cooperation, MedTech startups are thus able to conduct outcomes research with official assistance, he adds. 

Given the origins of many MedTech startups in academia, perhaps the biggest difficulty for many of them is presenting innovations as a viable business, especially when courting investment from big corporations. “They might have a great product but not know how to sell it,” says Yu. “When they present the MVP in a competitive landscape with comparisons to other technology, they give a spec list, but it doesn’t mean anything [to potential investors].”

To address these shortcomings, Mosaic helps startups reshape their business models to communicate more efficiently with investors. This often involves understanding that the market need might not be the same as that of the industry. Yu gives the example of Mosaic’s advisors from two major players in MedTech, Medtronic and Stryker, who have assisted with mentoring startups.

“Perhaps the market pain point is a patient requirement for low-cost applications,” says Yu. “But the companies might not focus only on this attribute but also on saving operation time.”

A good accelerator will help identify these requirements and match startups to suitable corporate partners. “We’re an elevator to startups, not only helping with connections but also serving as a bridge to their goals,” says Yu.