TECH EXPERTS

Soo Leong specialises in design and development of medical devices, equipment and automated systems since 1985. He was actively involved in R&D of medical devices over the last 10 years, from proof of concept, proof of value to regulatory and ISO13485 compliance. During the early part of his career, he worked as a design engineer, chief engineer and later as project manager with several MNCs including Matsushita, PSB, Phillips Electronics, NUS, Vestas. He has delivered more than 30 major projects covering diverse industries such as healthcare, pharmaceutical, wind energy, precision engineering, electronics and interconnect, semiconductor, hard disk drive, food manufacturing, etc. Soo Leong had also provided technical consultancy to local SMEs on setting up of production systems and implementing solutions for quality and productivity improvements. His latest interest is in the R&D collaboration with local hospitals, tapping on Ministry of Education and National Research Fund’s grants to develop medical devices for surgical applications. His recent patented project "percutaneous access targeting device for kidney stone surgery" was successfully commercialised.

Dr Cheah Li Kang specialises in surface modifications and coatings. He has shared his technical expertise with numerous companies, including an MNC, to build up their core competencies in post treatment for their products, namely metal or ceramic coatings on different types of substrate. He also provides surface treatment solutions for silicone rubber to bond on surfaces like plastic and metal. Dr Cheah obtained his PhD in Electrical and Electronic Engineering Nanyang Technological University. He has been granted more than 10 patents, and authored or co-authored more than 100 papers related to diamond like carbon thin film deposition and characterisation with vacuum related technology.

May Ng is the Global Director of ARQon, Asia Regulatory & Quality Consultancy for medical devices and drugs, assisting in product development and registration in Asia, CE and global approval. She is also an advisor for National Health Innovation Centre (NHIC) on all government hospital clinical trial funding in Singapore and sits on the main committee of Singapore Manufacturing Federation's Medtech Industry Group, ASEANMed and China-ASEAN Medical. May was in Singapore Health Sciences Authority (HSA) for almost 10 years to complete the implementation of the Singapore regulatory framework based on IMDRF/GHTF principles, and reviewing/approval of companies with ISO13485/GDPMDS and medical device/IVD. She joined Biosensors drug-coated stent manufacturing headquarter in Singapore for four years as Regulatory Director after two years working in the IVD industry. May has degrees in Biochemistry & Microbiology, Biomedical Engineering, and Medtech Manufacturing.

Dr Chandrasekaran Margam is a scientist with broad expertise in processing of materials for various applications such as biomedical implants/scaffolds, automotive applications, aerospace and similar applications. He is also experienced in additive manufacturing, tribology and characterisation, regulatory standards, business and operational strategies, transfer of technology from lab to commercialisation, market and technology analysis and evaluation. Dr Margam is currently the convener for three National Mirror Working Groups on ISO/TC 210 (Quality Management and Corresponding General Aspects for Medical Devices), ISO/TC 150 (Implants for Surgery) and ISO/TC 194 (Biological and Clinical Evaluation of Medical Devices). He is also the author of two books and a chapter for Metals for Medical Devices and ASM Handbook Vol 18 Friction Wear and Lubrication.

Dr Aravind Dasari is Associate Professor at NTU, School of Materials Science and Engineering. He is experienced in the design and development of composites, nanocomposites and coatings for utilisation in construction/building sector, electrical and electronic industries, food packaging and renewable energy sector. He is involved in the study of flame retardancy, and the development of various flame retardant coatings and materials in collaboration with various industry partners. Dr Dasari holds a PhD in Materials Engineering from University of Sydney.

Ee Bin Liew is Group Executive Director of Access-2-Healthcare, a global commercialisation and market access consulting company that physically executes end-to-end market entry and product launch activities to help overcome various challenges faced by medical technology companies globally - specifically in areas of healthcare business due diligence, commercialisation solutions from concept to market, and market access activities such as regulatory, quality and trade compliance.  Prior to founding the company, he spent most of his career in the medical device industry with MNCs, from product development to manufacturing, operations and product commercialisation. He held executive management and leadership roles of multi-cultural teams in Asia Pacific. He has the practical experience in various medical device environments and functions for turn-key go-to-market solutions through integration of marketing, IP, clinical affairs, reimbursement and regulatory affairs, and now lends his experience and energy to the medtech SMEs around the world. Ee Bin is in the forefront of the key Standards and Regulations development in the medical device industry for 12 years working directly in several drafting committees in the International Organisation on Standardisation (ISO) – namely, the TC210 Working Group 1 that was responsible for releasing the ISO13485:2016 and the Practical Guide to ISO13485:2016; ISO14971:2019 and its Technical Report; ISO TR20971 for Risk Management under Joint Working Group 1, as well as ISO TR20416 in Working Group 6 for Post-market surveillance. Ee Bin is also the Asian Harmonisation Working Party Technical Committee Co-Chair for Working Group 7 – Quality Management System – Operations and Implementation for the past 10 years, and its industry representative in the ISO committee. Ee Bin attained the Singapore Professional Certification in Management Consultancy in 2017 and is accredited to execute grant-funded projects. Ee Bin combines his long-term deep relationships with the senior management of the various government agencies and standards bodies, with the technical and commercial know-how relating to product development, go-to-market, as well as every countries’ unique challenges. This allows an objective perspective to both regulators and industry, R&D and commercial, to drive the future of healthcare. Besides his efforts for AHWP and ISO, Ee Bin also gives his time as the leader of the several medtech and digital health industry groups, fostering the growth of medical technology and Digital Health community globally. Ee Bin takes special interest in active devices and technologies involving AI software, through executing projects for his company’s clients, standards development, and being deeply involved with research projects involving software as a medical device and digital health. This balanced view, along with various market insights, provide a pragmatic approach towards regulation of software in the healthcare industry.

Dr Desmond Ang provides all levels of engineering services to the manufacturing industries. He specialises in the application of green chemistry to printed-electronic technologies and molecular-science in electrochemistry. Dr Ang has helped to develop applications of metals-powder or inorganic nano powder materials. He was involved in customising the functional performance of corrugated cardboards in fully automatic manufacturing processes. Through his experiences in various R&D projects, Dr Ang also has insights on different types of magnetic alloys that are produced by adoption of Green Path Coordination Chemistry and through Metal Injection Moulding technologies respectively. Dr Ang holds a PhD in Rare Earth Metals and Coordination Chemistry from Monash University. He was the Director of Engineering at Dou Yee Group and Rohm and Haas, as well as the factory manager at various organisations like LeaRonal Asia, Shipley Far East Ltd and Printed Circuit International. His past experiences put him in good stead to help address not only material-related matters but also the subsequent manufacturing challenges.

Dr Cindy Lee is currently Senior Lecturer at NUS Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. She is experienced in supercritical CO2 technologies, food waste processing, microencapsulation and controlled release systems for food and pharmaceutical applications. She is an Editorial Board Member for Advanced Powder Technology (Elsevier) and also Member of the International Society for Advancement of Supercritical Fluids. She was Associate Professor at Newcastle University in Singapore, where she held a concurrent appointment as Director of Excellence in Learning and Teaching (DELT) and Director of Operations (Chemical Engineering Programme). She was also previously a Project Leader at FeyeCon D&I BV, specialising in the development of new products and processes using supercritical CO2 technologies.

Dr Seri Lee has over 20 years of industry experience and previously held positions at Intel Corporation as Senior Thermal Scientist for the Silicon and Platform Solutions Group, Amkor Technology as Manager of Thermal Characterization, Aavid Thermal Technologies as Director of Advanced Thermal Engineering and at the University of Waterloo in Ontario as Assistant Professor of Mechanical Engineering. Dr Lee has published more than 60 technical papers and holds over 16 patents covering a wide range of thermal issues in electronics. He served as the General Chair for the 1998 IEEE SemiTherm International Symposium. In 2004 he received the best paper award from the ASME Journal of Heat Transfer Division. He was the CTO at Pipeline Micro, Inc where he focused on developing the company's patented micro scale liquid cooling systems, which the company applied to a broad range of semiconductor applications in alternative energy and consumer electronics applications.