In August, BioInnovation Institute welcomed a new member to the Business Development team. Cheng-Fu Chang, who goes by the name Tony, joined BII as a Senior Business Developer to work with our start-ups within health tech.
Tony Chang holds a Ph.D. in medical biochemistry from the University of Cape Town and an MBA from Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University. Working at BioInnovation Institute is his first encounter with Denmark, and he and his wife have settled in Copenhagen. We asked him a few questions about his career and his expertise in health tech.
Why did you choose a career in business development of translational research?
During my postgraduate study, I was exposed to translational research and developed a great interest in the business side of science. So, after finishing my Ph.D., I took on a variety of roles and responsibilities to learn more about how to facilitate the translation of innovation into products launched in the market. I worked with market research, industry promotion, technology transfer and early-stage investment in Taiwan, South Africa and the Netherlands, and after gaining all these years of experience, I was eager to step into a role where I could deploy my knowledge and network to achieve what I set out to do in the first place – to facilitate the translation of innovation into products launched in the market.
What made you set your eyes on BII?
I was introduced to BioInnovation Institute through my network, and I was immediately attracted to BII’s unique characteristics as a non-profit incubator model. BII is in a truly unique position to take the biggest swings for the fences and I am very excited to be part of such an ambitious project.
What is your role at BII?
I joined BII as a Senior Business Developer focusing on health tech. Health tech is not only a relatively new field of interest at BII but generally an area that is emerging and has really accelerated in this year due to the COVID 19 pandemic. At BII, we have an interest in data-driven technology solutions which aim to improve patient outcome. This emphasis also covers data-driven solutions that serve the life science R&D segment of the healthcare value chain, where a more efficient and robust life science R&D process would ultimately generate more next-generation healthcare products to serve patients. I am currently spending much of my time communicating about BII’s health tech interest in the ecosystem and broadening our network in this field. Hopefully, we will see many high-quality health tech applications in BII’s upcoming calls so we can help bring great ideas to market.
What are the most interesting trends in health tech at the moment?
Health tech, specifically digital health, is booming this year. According to Rock Health, a prominent digital health investor and market tracker, digital health achieved a record year of venture funding raised in 2020 by Q3 with a tally of USD 9.4B. With all the funding flowing into this field, we are also starting to see the birth of established health tech companies big enough to influence the development of the health tech market through M&A activities. At the same time, other news such as FDA’s first approval of a video game as a medical intervention and the rollout of the Digital Healthcare Act in Germany are very positive signals that reflect a slowly but surely maturing market environment for digital health solutions.
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