Singapore’s pandemic success wasn’t built on production but vaccine procurement. Prior to the crisis, large presence of biotech MNC in SG was already there, giving SG a leg ahead to coordinate an aggressive procurement strategy and made vaccine the critical resource to get SG out of the crisis.

In Korea, its success in test kits and testing capacity can be directly attributed to the fact that the SK govt already built a strong presence in the biotech industry and a track record of supporting R&D-focused biotech SMEs through institutionalizing technology transfer prior to the pandemic.

Taiwan is known for SME-driven manufacturing base,and this strength translated into emergency mask production. However, large-scale test kit production and vaccine development rely on the biotech industry’s deep R&D and manufacturing capacity—an area where Taiwan lacked both scale and coordination.

This article compares three developmental states (South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore) in Asia to answer why some states were able to mobilize certain medical resource (but not others) during COVID.

Answer: Each state’s pre-pandemic industrial coordination capacity matters.