Asst Prof Enci Mary Kan, PhD

Mary is Director of the MedTech Cluster, representing the first joint-cluster across all three Innovation & Enterprise, Biomedical Research Council and Science & Engineering Research Council divisions at the Agency of Science, Technology and Research. In this role, Mary works across the ecosystem and key public agencies to develop MedTech roadmaps and support the execution through A*STAR research performers. Mary is also the Programme Director of MedTech Catapult, a national initiative that aims to accelerate high-value MedTech productisation whilst bolstering local design and development capabilities to support local contract manufacturing organisations (CMOs). She is also a certified ISO13485 Lead Auditor.

Mary was previously the Programme Director of Singapore Biodesign (SB). During her tenure, she oversaw the programme’s transition from Singapore-Stanford Biodesign to Singapore Biodesign and subsequently led SB to achieving the Global Affiliate status from Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign. Mary has attained the WSQ Diploma in Design and Development of Learning of Performance and was a key driver in developing the Health and MedTech Innovation Training White Paper that was co-developed between SB and Duke-NUS, and jointly endorsed by NRF, A*STAR and Enterprise SG. Under Mary’s leadership, SB experienced remarkable growth in talent output, increasing from an average of 64 individuals per year to over 220 annually, and elevated SB's standing within the ecosystem and in the region. In her initial work at I&E A*STAR, she supported industry development and technology transfer and seeded >40 translational projects with more than half securing significant industry collaboration.

Prior to A*STAR, Mary started off as a researcher supporting pre-clinical research in traumatic brain injury. Since finishing the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign fellowship in 2015, she has been immersed in clinical environments in developed and developing countries and now applies a systematic approach to assessing unmet clinical needs. Mary was involved in product design & development consultancy work for a NASDAQ-listed medical device MNC with a view to launch their product in China. She was also part of a new business initiative at ST Engineering in developing the MedTech business strategy, looking at investments and venture building of new healthcare products.

Mary graduated with a PhD in Neuroscience from National University of Singapore, Master of Science in Pharmacology (Distinction) from King’s College London and Bachelors of Science (First Class Honours) from Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine.