Unearthing #2: Advanx Health with founder Yong Wei Shian
Get insights on the state of the healthcare industry and the promise of health tech
Welcome back to the second edition of our Unearthing series! This week, we speak to Yong Wei Shian, founder of health tech startup Advanx Health. On a quest to empower people to take charge of their health by providing a unique and personal genomics discovery experience, Advanx Health aims to bridge the gap between health tech and personal healthcare. Read on to learn about his entrepreneurial journey, his thoughts on the healthcare industry in Malaysia and how he intends to become a valuable contributor in the area that intersects health with genomics.
As we understand it, Advanx Health isn’t your first venture. Once upon a time, you founded social enterprise FoodNinja with a mission to solve the issue of food waste. Tell us more about your journey during those years - the highs, the lows, the in between.
FoodNinja was a social enterprise that was founded by a few friends and I back in university when we came upon the issue of surplus food, which was what we passionately wanted to solve. We thought of channelling surplus food from places like supermarkets and bakeries to the needy through an online matching platform. One of our biggest achievements was when we were selected as one of the participants of MaGIC’s Accelerator Program under the social enterprise track. We were able to mingle with some of the earliest social enterprises in Malaysia like the 100% Project and Saora Industries. The most challenging part was running a startup while trying to complete my pharmacy degree. I must admit that I didn’t handle both responsibilities well and a lot of times, the team just couldn’t give enough commitment which led to us deciding to close down the startup.
Graduating with a degree in pharmacy, was going into the healthcare industry a natural path for you or did you have doubts going into it?
To be honest, I had my doubts after I graduated. I would say studying pharmacy wasn’t really my forte nor interest. At the time, my dream was to actually study medicine but I was offered a degree in pharmacy instead. Upon graduation, I had the chance to intern at Fave and after six months, I was given an opportunity to work full time. However, at that point, I thought of giving myself a chance to really experience the healthcare industry which is what I studied, which led me to decide on joining a retail pharmacy chain in Johor called AM PM Pharmacy.
From your experience working on the frontlines of healthcare in a pharmacy, what inspired you to start Advanx Health?
When I worked as a community pharmacist in AM PM Pharmacy, we served hundreds of customers everyday with various health issues. I started to realise that a lot of us don’t really understand our body and the underlying health issues. We started to look into ways to help us better understand our genetic makeup which led me to discover DNA testing which has been fairly common in the western world. This was the spark that led me to start Advanx Health.
Healthcare is a highly regulated industry both locally and internationally. What were some of the challenges that you foresaw going into the industry and what made you decide to do it anyway?
The biggest challenge is building a compelling sales narrative in order to get people to buy our test kits and what to include in people’s personal health reports. Thankfully, our founding team all come from pharmaceutical backgrounds, so we are well aware of all the rules and regulations when it came to registering our kit under the Medical Device Authority. We knew the right person to approach and made the conscious decision to do it properly.
How does Malaysia’s healthcare industry fare against other countries in the Southeast Asian region, and the rest of the world?
Malaysia has been ranked as one of the top countries that offers the best healthcare, undoubtedly Malaysia does offer a really affordable and yet high quality public healthcare to our fellow Malaysians. The only area of improvement would be building our capacity in local medical and life science research. Our neighbour (Singapore) has been very active in supporting a lot of life science companies by providing them funding as well as facilities which I think Malaysia should definitely look into with our existing pool of talent and resources.
With many healthcare figures, metrics and findings based predominantly on Caucasians, would you say that there’s a lack of conclusive data in relation to the genetic build up of people on this side of the world i.e. Southeast Asians?
Definitely. The good news is that in recent years, genetic research in Asia and Southeast Asia has started to speed up. More countries have started to realise the importance of studying genetics and are willing to put in more resources. Hopefully, Malaysia can catch up with the western world and Advanx Health will definitely be part of building the momentum.
In this day and age, it’s hard not to talk about the topic of Covid19 and how it’s affected businesses. One would assume that given you’re a healthcare company, your business wouldn’t have suffered as much. What have the impacts been on your business? Did you face many more challenges and if so, how have you managed to overcome those?
Because our lab is not designed to run any diagnostic PCR tests, we were forced to shut down the lab temporarily during the movement control order (MCO). During MCO last year, people were very careful with their spending and most of our new partners like Caring Pharmacy were still trying to adapt to the new norm, so our sales of DNA test kits were largely affected.
But also because we were involved in the healthcare industry, we were exposed to different opportunities like supplying COVID-19 test kits, arranging at-home on-demand blood screening tests and supplying medical equipment to companies. These were the new revenue streams which helped us to sustain in 2020. Right now, we have several platforms that serve different groups of customers. In 2021, we will focus on strengthening our revenue streams via several contracts with strategic partners that we are currently in negotiations with.
You’ve recently introduced MyScreening which addresses the consumer sexual wellness market. How did such an offering come about?
Initially, we started FindMyTest in April 2020 which is a simple directory that we built to help Malaysians find the nearest clinics and hospitals that offers COVID-19 tests. We then received a lot of positive feedback about how we’ve helped people find the right place to get tested earlier which motivated us to build MyScreening which at first was a platform that allows people to book screening tests like blood test, COVID-19 test, etc.
At that point, CMCO was reintroduced and a lot of movement restrictions were in place which prompted us to think about at-home test kits. We then stumbled upon HIV rapid test kits and we just listed the product onto MyScreening. To our surprise, we received extremely positive response with very encouraging revenue figures from the sales of HIV rapid test kits. We began to identify an existing need in the consumer sexual wellness market due to a lot of different factors, one of which is people want to be discreet about their sexual wellbeing but yet are keen to get themselves checked.
Sexual education remains such a taboo topic in Malaysia. What have some of the challenges been and the opportunities in terms of raising the awareness of sexual health and wellbeing among the community?
We are still at the beginning of our journey, so for the time being our aim is to help our customers with their concerns and questions about their own sexual health status and what they should do next. I think the real challenge will be reaching out to the community at large who aren’t exposed to proper sexual health education, which is our direction moving forward.
Since you started back in 2017 / 2018, what have your growth numbers been in terms of sales, profits and team members?
Ever since we started in early 2018, our team has grown from a 3-person team to a 7-person team with a few interns in tow. Currently, we are still running at a loss but we have generated revenue figures of close to RM500,000 in comparison to 2018 whereby we only made revenue amounting to RM50,000 which is a 900% growth in just two years.
Over the past decade, there’s been a lot of self awakening amongst people to take their health more seriously which has given rise to a wealth of fitness and wellness businesses including popular gyms like Tribe and F45 to wellness platforms like PurelyB and Naluri. What opportunities are there for your business to work together with such establishments?
We’ve worked with PurelyB once on a few blog posts as they needed fresh new content for their audience and we thought their audience would resonate with our products. I would say that we do have a lot of opportunities to work with fitness centres, health supplement companies and even retail stores to bring more personalised health solutions to their customers.
Where do you foresee the healthcare industry moving towards in the next 10 years?
I foresee the healthcare industry will be moving at a faster pace in terms of research by utilising a lot of data science and technology, as we can already see from the COVID-19 vaccine development. Previously, it may take more than 10 years for a vaccine program to be rolled out, but it only took one year to roll out the very first Pfizer-BioNtech vaccine. This is largely due to the advancement of research which utilises machine learning and data science.
On the other hand, I also expect more personalised healthcare solutions and precision medicine to be introduced. Pharma industries have been very bullish on the future of precision medicine and targeted therapy which is a direction that I would like to take Advanx Health towards.
Let’s talk about branding for a second. Advanx Health was once known as Ubihealth. What led you to change the name? Tell us more about the rebranding journey.
We came up with the name Ubihealth because of the word “Ubiquitous” which means found or existing everywhere but we started to realise that it’s a bit difficult to connect with people because “ubi” also means potato in the Malay language. We soon rebranded to Advanx Health. The plus side to changing was that we were also able to secure a domain of the same name haha!
Healthcare isn’t particularly a “sexy” topic. What were some of your considerations as you went into creating a brand narrative for your company?
Healthcare is definitely a heavily regulated space which I personally think should be the way given the risk factors. We need to be very careful with the wording and interpretation of the reports when it comes to providing a risk score to our customers. At primary screening test spaces, we always position our offering as a means for people to know their bodies and health state better before anything bad happens. We need to make sure that we are the go-to when it comes to DNA testing, but on the other hand, we also don’t want to over claim anything beyond what we have studied and researched about genetics.
How have you been marketing your products and services and what have you found to work well?
We started to market our products through direct-to-consumer channels such as utilising social media ads. We had a hard time in the early stages because Malaysian aren’t equipped with enough knowledge about DNA testing, thus we needed to change our marketing strategy to be more content-heavy to educate and convince our target audience about the value of our product and hopefully purchase it for themselves. So far, we believe content based marketing like giving free health recipes and health blog write ups really help with building our brand credibility. We have also been fortunate enough to work with retail stores like Caring Pharmacy to be able to reach more customers.
How has working with Bawatana helped you as an early stage startup founder?
I still remember the first time Sam from pitchIN introduced Sa’ad and Hardesh to us during our startup showcase, telling us how good these guys are and from there, we were really keen to have them on board as our investor. We are really grateful to have Bawatana to be with us throughout the journey. Sa’ad and Hardesh have helped us since the beginning starting with the Brand Model Canvas exercise which we still refer to until today. When it comes to the area of branding and marketing, Bawatana is always our go-to place for actionable advice and smart solutions.
You’ve been an active figure in the startup scene since 2014. How did you get yourself in the fraternity in the first place?
At the beginning, it was tough because most of the startup events or conferences were held in KL while I was still studying in Penang. So I had to make the effort to travel to KL. I also needed to mingle with new friends from different circles because back in 2014, you generally wouldn’t see pharmacy students running around at a startup event because our academics were hectic enough! So I would say it was really tough but all the networking opportunities and communities that I’ve built since 2014 made all the effort worthwhile!
Where will you be placing your focus and efforts for 2021 - both personally and professionally?
Professionally, I would like to contribute more of our insights in the life science and healthcare industries, not only in the consumer market but also through our work with the Ministry of Health and the pharmaceutical industry at large to spur more local research and also provide more value to Malaysia in the area of clinical genomic tests.
Personally, I hope to be able to get back to writing personal blogs or elaborating my views towards certain topics that I am interested in. I have actually stopped writing since I started Advanx Health, but I guess it’s time for me to get back to writing and content creation, maybe YouTube as well haha.
What gets you out of bed in the morning?
The importance for me to keep hustling not only to keep the company going, but more importantly to sustain my team members as I understand everyone has a personal livelihood to maintain. I need to make sure everyone receives and gives their best at work to be able to feed their families. This is the biggest responsibility that I am carrying on my shoulders, to keep the team intact and to align all our stakeholders' interests.
Where do you see yourself in 5-10 years?
I would like to see myself still actively involved in the life science space. If given the chance, I would also like to get myself involved in policy making by contributing our insights from the healthcare industry perspective to make Malaysia a more thriving and advanced biotech and life science space.
On the other hand, I also hope to involve myself in the academic space by bringing real-world experience and perspective to pharmacy students and other healthcare-related faculties to inspire them to flourish in the life science area.
Startup Events and Happenings
MaGIC Virtual Grill or Chill in conjunction with #NationalScienceWeek
MaGIC’s popular monthly pitching sessions Grill or Chill (GoC) is back, this time virtually whereby startups can showcase their products and get valuable feedback from experts in the startup ecosystem.
With a growing interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) among students, Malaysia is on the road towards cultivating innovation and creativity from the grassroots of our nation through the implementation of science, technology and innovation (STI)-based programs and activities. In conjunction with #NationalScienceWeek, Virtual GoC’s upcoming edition aims to raise public awareness on the importance of STIs, build interest in STEM among students and recognise contributions and achievements in science. The startups including Tapau Je, Jauhar Straw, Agri Data, iSmart, i-Lemond, MyPsych, Herlysa Vegan and Cocoa Noix Flour will be grilled by Mydiana Madzlan, Manager Venture & Partnership at MaGIC and Umar Munshi, Co-Founder of Ethis Ventures.
Register for the Virtual GoC happening on Saturday, 3 April 2021 from 2.00 pm - 5.00 pm now!
Startup Skills Workshop: How to Setup your Business using WhatsApp for Startups
Discover and learn the basic skills on how you can setup your startup business using popular messaging app WhatsApp. Find out how you can setup your WhatsApp Business app, explore WhatsApp Business tools, how to integrate your account onto your Facebook page and Facebook Business Manager catalogue, create ads that lead to WhatsApp in Ads Manager and how to link your Instagram profile to your WhatsApp Business. The workshop will be led by Muhammad Hanif Parhin, Founder of Acceptby.
The workshop will take place on Thursday, 8 April 2021 from 10.00 am - 4.00 pm.
Empower your social selling capabilities by registering for the workshop today!