SINGAPORE is pumping $36 million into a new drive to produce more and better health-care devices such as heart stents, pacemakers and diagnostic chips.

Medical technology or medtech is worth about $3 billion here, but has been dominated largely by international firms.

In this first concerted effort to grow local medtech, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) scientists and engineers will work with doctors from local hospitals to come up with devices such as stroke rehabilitation systems, better catheters and glaucoma diagnosis software. These projects are among the first batch of eight grants awarded by A*Star which, together with local universities and hospitals, has given out $20 million in a joint scheme so far.

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