Senior Management

Associate Professor Henry Ho

Executive Director

Henry HO is the Chairman for Division of Surgery and Surgical Oncology, Singapore General Hospital and National Cancer Centre Singapore; Academic Chair for Surgery Academic Clinical Program, SingHealth. Currently A/Prof Henry is also holding the appointment as Director for SingHealth Duke-NUS Innovation Centre.

A/Prof Henry is a urological surgeon that specializes in robotic surgery for urological cancers such as prostate & kidney. He received his MBBS and Master of Medicine (Surgery) from the National University of Singapore. After his accreditation as a Urologist, he further specializes with fellowships in robotic surgery in University of Innsbruck, Austria and Stone surgery in Hamburg, Germany.

A/Prof Henry is an advocate for innovation in his clinical career. He is an early adopter of new technology with robust scientific methodology. Amongst his many publications, the randomized control trial on bipolar technology for prostate enlargement changes the practice of urologist internationally.

He went on to be an innovator with the invention of Mona LisaTM transperineal prostate biopsy device (Biobot Surgicals Pte Ltd). He brought this project from a research project to commercial company. The device provide safe and accurate diagnosis of prostate cancer in men. It is used in many Singapore hospitals, Germany, Australia and China.

A/Prof Henry also contributes to the Singapore innovation ecosystem. He was the first doctor in SGH/SingHealth to be awarded the Singapore-Stanford Biodesign Fellowship Award by A*STAR in 2011. He started the Medical technology Office (MTO) in Singhealth to help more clinicians onto this innovation journey. Its goal is to nurture doctors, nurses and allied health with grants and technology matching to become clinician-innovators. His NMRC is Co-chair of the Clinician-innovator taskforce and Chair for clinician-innovator development grant.

A/Prof Henry leads the clinical test-bedding and adoption in Singhealth-DUKE NUS Academic Medicine Innovation Institute which aims to facilitate implementation of technologies with external partners into the healthcare system. to imbue such vibrant exchange and collaboration (Digital, technologyand process), there will be a healthcare Innovation and transformation center.

Pauline Tay, Ph.D

Director

Prior to joining NHIC, Pauline was Executive Director and Head of Innovation Partnerships at UBS Tech Connect, responsible for establishing strategic partnerships across tech ecosystems in South-East Asia, facilitating access to capital and connections. Simultaneously, she served as Chairperson of the Singapore Business Federation SME Council’s Subcommittee for Technology, Innovation and Productivity, and acted as strategic advisor to a local biotech startup, Celligenics, for which she served as Chief Operating Officer prior.

Before this, Pauline spent 25 years of her career in public sector, in various leadership roles in science and technology. She was Senior Deputy Director, serving dual roles at the Strategy and Innovation and Enterprise (I&E) Directorates at the National Research Foundation (NRF) of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). She was responsible for formulating and implementing strategies and programmes to catalyse innovation and enterprise development through technology. During her term of office, she led the establishment and implementation of key I&E signatures, including the Singapore Week of Innovation and TeCHnology (SWITCH), Decentralised and Central Gap, Pollinate, The Elevator, National Lean Launchpad, Innovation Clusters, Industry-Alignment Funds, Technology Incubator Scheme, Early-Stage Venture Funds, SGInnovate and Xora.

Pauline was also a founding team member of Intellectual Property Intermediary (IPI), where she established and headed the Healthcare and Personal Care cluster. The role involved providing technology and intellectual property intelligence, scouting and matching services to industry, assisting companies to adopt technologies in their business models.

Prior to that, Pauline spent 12 years of her early career in the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), seeing the transformation of the then National Science and Technology Board (NSTB) into A*STAR. She was involved in the development of the biomedical science sector in her role at the Science and Engineering Research Council (SERC) in tandem with the Biomedical Research Council (BMRC) and Economic Development Board (EDB), establishing and managing research institutes and talent development programmes within A*STAR. She was on the initial team that worked to establish the Genetic Modification Advisory Committee, Bioethics Advisory Committee and A*STAR Graduate Scholarship. She later went on to do her Ph.D. and postdoc in stem cell biology, in a collaborative project involving the Singapore Stem Cell Consortium at A*STAR’s Institute for Medical Biology (IMB), the Institute of Bioengineering at Miguel Hernández University, Spain, and the first stem cell startup in Singapore, Embryonic Stem Cell International (ESI).

Pauline started her public sector career in productivity training and consultancy at the Singapore Productivity and Standards Board (PSB), which is now Enterprise Singapore.

Pauline holds a Ph.D. in Stem Cell Biology and a B.Sc. in Microbiology and Biochemistry from the National University of Singapore, with a postgraduate certificate in Advanced Biotechnology from the Osaka University School of Medicine, Japan.