Around the World in 3.5 Days

Der-An Fann is not a natural salesman. He’s straight-laced, reserved, and more than a bit uncomfortable addressing large groups of people. He also lacks the gift of gab.

But for several days last week, Fann faced his fears and embraced his inner [salesman, mojo] to join his Taiwanese colleagues in promoting the country’s biotechnology/medical device industry.

“Foreign trade is the lifeline of Taiwan’s economic development. For half a century, Taiwan has been the world’s largest supplier of many manufactured items,” Fann said, reading from prepared remarks during a news conference at Medica 2012 World Forum for Medicine in Düsseldorf, Germany (held Nov. 14-17). “Countless Made-in-Taiwan products have been a vital link in the international supply chain. Taiwan has an R&D foundation and has built up the ability to develop medical devices successfully. Taiwan can serve as one of the gateways to the Chinese market because [we] have the same cultural background as China. Today, Taiwan invites you to become our trading partner and share in our excellent competitive advantage as we work together to power economic growth.”

Government and foreign trade representatives like Fann (he heads the German office of Taipei’s economic division) increasingly are partnering with the sales/marketing managers of local medtech firms to publicize, endorse and market their countries as bastions of biotech innovation. Canvassing the exhibit halls of any large trade show these days—particularly Medica (the world’s biggest medical fair, organizers claim)—is like circling the globe, only without the headaches of flight delays, security checks and cramped seating.

Country/regional booths at these shows are nearly as elaborate as those sponsored by multi-national firms like Boston Scientific Inc., Medtronic Inc., Stryker Corp. and Covidien plc. Some countries/areas used savvy marketing ploys to force passers-by to visit their booths—the Kobe (Japan) Biomedical Innovation Cluster, for instance, drew attention to itself by featuring two young women painting names in Japanese. Attendees who partook in the offer or hesitated even slightly to watch the artists work were quickly greeted by Yasunori Adachi, a business advisor with Japan’s External Trade Organization, and given a brief overview of the area’s 220-company-strong medtech sector (the country’s largest). The Innovation Cluster is part of a city government initiative to attract more medical-related companies to the Kobe area and boost the region’s image as a research and development hub of leading-edge medical technologies.

Some countries used catchy slogans to entice potential investors, while others—like Russia—took advantage of Dusseldorf International Airport’s digital advertising space to beckon show [travelers]. Singapore’s huge “Future Ready” slogan was visible half a hall away, acting as a beacon to those searching for unchartered capital venture opportunities in Asia. Tourists who landed at the country’s sizable pavilion were rewarded with pamphlets about Singapore’s $4.3 billion medtech industry and demonstrations of new products released specifically at the show. Clearbridge VitalSigns Pte. Ltd., for example, showcased its expanded, fully-integrated, three-lead electrocardiogram monitor. The company expanded the CardioLeaf device into a family of three different products: CardioLeaf FIT, CardioLeaf PRO and CardioLeaf ULTRA. SG Microlab Devices Pte. Ltd. kept interest levels up with a new tissue homogenizer that can extract DNA, RNA and proteins from tissue samples as small as 5 milligrams (a “necessary update to the tissue lysis field,” according to executives), and the Biofactory—a biomedical, biotechnical and life sciences incubator—displayed its ColoQuik line of label-free kits for the rapid colorimetric detection of protein-DNA interactions.

Taiwanese companies touted their wares too, but did so for the press as well to maximize their exposure. During a 90-minute “news conference” on Medica’s opening day (where Fann courageously faced his demons) biotech industry bigwigs presented their best case for investing in the south Asian nation and helping the government turn biotechnology into a $1 trillion industry within a decade (the sector garnered $8 billion in revenue last year, statistics from the Taiwan Bio Industry Organization indicate). “We believe this industry will be important in the future to promote better human health,” Huihua Chiang, executive secretary of the Science and Technology Office of Taiwan’s “Executive Yuan,” told media assembled at the news conference.

Five companies already helping to improve Taiwanese healthcare made their own sales pitches at the news conference, providing media with brief overviews of their respective entities and comprehensive explanations of products. Taidoc Technology Corporation led the commercial procession with salesman Sean Lee touting the benefits of the firm’s mesh ultrasonic nebulizer; Linkwin Technology Co. Ltd. owner Arthur Cheng followed with the global debut of the TherMedic Qi-Point heating pad for menstrual pain (the pad uses cabric medical and aerospace grade carbon fiber fabric heating technology, Ching said); and Bioteque Corporation product manager Justin Wu discussed his firm’s over-the-wire PTA Balloon Dilatation catheter, used for the treatment of obstructive lesions of native or synthetic arteriovenous dialysis fistula. General Biologics Corp. and PlexBio Co. Ltd. ended the media briefing with details about their respective non-invasive diagnostic tool for liver fibrosis and carboxyl barcoded bead technology for protein-based and DNA-based assays.

Taiwanese trade officials hosted a tea reception and business partnering event for the companies after the news conference. “Come to Taiwan,” Gemmy Industrial Corp. President and former Taiwan Medical and Biotech Industry Association Chairman Ben Chen graciously told invitees. “You’re all my guests.”

ABIMO Executive President Paulo Henrique Fraccaro issued a similar invitation to guests at his news conference, held at the Brazilian pavilion that housed 50 company booths and an open bar area for a post-press opp Happy Hour event. Fraccaro spent about 30 minutes providing foreign journalists with an overview of Brazil’s medical devices industry (healthcare equipment exports grew 11.7 percent last year) and a resounding renouncement of the stereotypical Carnivàle-soccer-bronze beach bodies-image most of the world associates with the country. “We introduced the Brazilian Health Devices brand last year at Medica and there is no yellow or green in it like there is in the Brazilian flag,” noted Paula Portugal, ABIMO’s international projects manager. “We want to run away from the image of Carnivàle, soccer, Rio [de Janeiro], all that. When I go to the United States and say I’m from Brazil, people ask me ‘What do you make? Do you have a [manufacturing] plant down there?’ People generally don’t know about our health devices industry.”

ABIMO is attempting to eliminate such ignorance through global trade show attendance and the creation of government programs that remove stubborn market barriers. News conferences such as Fraccaro’s helps, as does the promise of an ABIMO-sponsored, all-expense-paid trip for journalists to Latin America’s Hospitalar trade show next spring. Free food and drinks don’t hurt, either—dozens of Medica attendees lined up for caipirinhas (Brazil’s national cocktail of sugar, cachaça and lime juice) and Brazilian specialty finger foods. Similar after-hours receptions were held throughout the cavernous exhibit hall housing country-sponsored pavilions: Canada trade and investment officials served mini quiches and cheese-topped bruschetta hors d’oeuvres at its event (held after another news conference), while Switzerland medtech executives predictably served wine and cheese (the line for freshly-imported Swiss cheese was just as long as Brazil’s queue for caipirinhas). Giving the informal receptions a somewhat festive feel was the music wafting through the exhibit hall’s aisles from a Brazilian singer. As one attendeed noted, “this is the perfect end to a long, hard day.”