Sometimes, the value of medical innovation is best measured not in millions of baht saved, but in whether an ordinary person can get her life back. 

That is what happened to Auntie Khamkaew, a villager in northern Thailand. 

For years, she struggled to afford the colostomy bags she needed after surgery left her with an opening in her abdomen to pass waste. “They are so expensive,” she said. “I was under so much stress.” 

Auntie Khamkaew is one of thousands of Thais who need these bags to live a normal life, and one of many who could not afford them.

Then a Thai-made alternative became available free of charge under Thailand’s Universal Coverage Scheme, commonly known as the Gold -Card scheme.  

“Now, I can go back to selling things and making a living, just as I did before. I got my life back.” 

Her story is about much more than getting a free ostomy bags, or one patient getting help. It shows what can happen when research funded by public money moves beyond the laboratory and becomes a practical solution for people who need it. 

Behind this policy is a story about Thailand’s efforts to develop its own medical innovations — products that can actually be used in hospitals, replace imports, and, at the same time, reduce the financial burden on the National Health Security Office (NHSO). 

Similar changes are under way in operating rooms at several hospitals. Patient-specific 3D-printed devices for treating facial deformities, together with software for planning jaw and facial bone surgery, are already being used to improve treatment. 

According to OsseoLabs, the technology can cut patients’ recovery time by 20%, reduce time in the operating room by almost half, and lower surgical costs by as much as 20%. 

These innovations did not simply appear out of nowhere. 

Behind them, in part, is our own tax money. The government has invested through the National Science, Research and Innovation Fund in the Targeted Programme for Medical Devices, Medical Services, Medicines and Vaccines, with a combined budget of 620 million baht for fiscal years 2025 and 2026. 

So far, 46 research projects have received funding to take their work further. 

The hope is straightforward: more Thai people will gain access to medical innovations developed by Thai researchers; Thailand will become less dependent on imports; and, eventually, these innovations will generate income for the country through exports. 

But there is a question that we, as taxpayers, have every right to ask: 

Is this money being well spent? 

As head of the monitoring and evaluation team from the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), which was tasked by the Targeted Programme to conduct an independent evaluation, I would like to share what we have found over the past year. 

The programme set an ambitious target for its first year: to generate income and reduce imports by 500 million baht. 

But when our research team checked the results, we could verify only 11.3 million baht — less than 3% of the target. 

The programme also aimed to bring medical innovations to two million people. So far, the programme has reached less than 1% of that number. 

At first glance, these figures may look disappointing. But we have to put them in context. 

The programme has been running for only about 10 months. Many of the projects that received funding have not yet reached their reporting deadlines, while others have not submitted their reports. These figures are therefore only the minimum that we can verify at this stage. We should have a much clearer picture next year. 

There is another reason why we should be careful about judging medical innovation by short-term numbers. 

Medical innovation takes time. 

Medical devices, medicines, and vaccines must meet international safety standards. Research involving human subjects must go through ethical review, a process that can take several months. And even after a product is ready, hospitals need time to gain confidence in it before they are willing to use it in real-life treatment. 

This is why I think the target of generating more than 1.5 billion baht in sales and import reductions within two years — including 500 million baht in the first year — is simply too ambitious. It also does not fit the nature of medical innovation. 

The target should probably be spread over a longer period. 

Yet there is something in our findings that gives me more hope than the numbers suggest. 

When we looked at the projects that were moving ahead most successfully, we found that they shared three characteristics. 

First, the private sector was genuinely involved.the private sector had money on the table. Not a letter of support, but actual capital or a business team working 

Private companies were either investing their own money or working directlyly with researchers to develop the products. That is important because it shows there is a real market for the innovation. 

Second, the founders wereare not just scientists. They are were  the entrepreneurs who knew business and had a clear vision. 

They were not looking only at the Thai market. They were already thinking about overseas markets because they understood that the domestic market alone would be too small to sustain the business in the long run. 

Third, the government did not let go halfway. These projects did not receive a one-time grant and then get left on their own. They received continuous support as they moved from research towards actual use and commercialisation. 

We found several good examples. 

Most had something in common: they did not start from zero. They built on research that had been developed over many years. The Targeted Programme came in at an important stage, helping researchers and businesses make the difficult transition from the laboratory to real-world use. 

Take, for example, an artificial-intelligence system that helps read lung X-rays. 

The project was founded by people with business experience. They worked with a major private hospital network to develop the technology and test it in real clinical settings. The next step is to expand into overseas markets. 

The Thai-made ostomy bag followed a different path. 

It began as university research and development. Later, a business came in to take the technology further. The company worked with researchers on further research and development, manufacturing, and sales, and is now planning to expand the market into the Middle East. 

The patient-specific 3D-printed devices for treating facial deformities provide another example. 

The company began as a university research project. After proving that its technology could work, it rsucceeded in raising more than 100 million baht from investors. It is now looking to expand into several continents. 

Different products, different technologies, different starting points — but the same formula keeps emerging. 

There must be a real market need. The entrepreneurs must be serious about turning innovation into a sustainable business. And the government must stay with them throughout the value chain, not step away halfway. 

That, to me, is the most important lesson. 

Success does not come from receiving a research grant once. It comes from sustained support all the way from the laboratory to the market.  

So perhaps the real question is not, “Why haven’t we reached the target?” 

The more important question is: “How do we make this good practice the norm for research funding?” 

Saovaraj Tangkitvanich, PhD, is a Research Director at the Thailand Development and Research Institute (TDRI). Policy analyses from the TDRI appeared in the Bangkok Post on 26 August 2026.