Photo: Louis Payet/Peach Health Asia
Digital rehabilitation is becoming a more accessible option in Singapore as a new player moves to bring structured, lower-cost physiotherapy support directly into people's homes.
Across much of Southeast Asia, physiotherapy remains inaccessible due to high out-of-pocket costs, limited reimbursement, and a shortage of allied health professionals. These constraints, combined with rising acceptance of virtual care post-pandemic, have created an opening for digital models of rehabilitation to scale across fragmented health systems.
Targeting this space is Peach Health Asia, founded in 2023, a company that licenses clinically validated digital health technologies from the United States and Europe and adapts them for Southeast Asian markets.
Its flagship product, PeachCare Move, initially targets chronic joint, neck, and back pain – areas with high unmet demand and limited specialist access in countries like Indonesia, Vietnam and Malaysia.
For SG$120 (around $92) a month, PeachCare Move combines motion-capture assessments, physiotherapist review, and continuous human coaching, automating early assessments and standardising components of rehabilitation.
Mobihealth News interviewed founder and CEO Louis Payet, a former business development and mergers and acquisitions executive at Zuellig Pharma, about why Asia's access gaps make digital rehabilitation particularly timely, why most pharma companies struggle to commercialise software, and how localisation and market-specific commercial pathways will determine whether services like PeachCare Move can scale across the region.
Q. You spent 15 years in Asia's pharmaceutical industry before founding Peach Health Asia. What made you walk away from a stable pharma career to build a digital health company? How did your own experience after knee surgery expose the specific access or adherence gaps you're now trying to solve?
A: I've actually been in the life sciences space in Asia for 22 years, though my early career was spent in medical research, consulting, and investment banking before I landed my first role in pharma.
In my previous pharma role [at Zuellig Pharma], I spearheaded the company's exploration into digital therapeutics. With that experience, I can say, there's a clear sector-wide reason digital therapeutics have made limited inroads into the pharma world: it simply isn't their core business. Pharma companies are amazing commercial engines when it comes to developing and selling drugs, but selling software to physicians is not something they are accustomed to.
Over time, I realised there is also a mismatch between what pharma companies are designed to do and what is required to commercialise digital health products. The biggest gap is the need to engage directly with consumers; pharma is built to sell products to doctors and the healthcare system, not to support patients directly — which digital health often requires.
Interoperability in customer systems is another challenge. That's a tech issue, and again, not a core competency of a standard pharma company. My own surgery gave me valuable insight into how joint health is managed. I was also lucky to work closely with one of the three pioneer joint health companies in the United States, which helped me understand how their technology addressed gaps in Asia.
One of the biggest drivers for me to enter the digital health space and create Peach Health Asia was seeing, repeatedly, how cost and access barriers limit the impact of great therapies in Asia. I spent years bringing innovative drugs into the region, yet many still never reached most patients because of affordability issues and limited reimbursement. I could see that digital health products, which can support more accessible, cost-effective healthcare, could, in fact, bridge this gap.
Q. How does PeachCare Move actually work (from triage to therapy and follow-up) and what makes it clinically credible compared to traditional physiotherapy? Could you share early results on engagement, recovery, or adherence, and how technology (AI, motion tracking, or coaching) supports these outcomes?
A: Peachcare Move was built using the experience of other digital health companies that have a legacy of successfully operating in the musculoskeletal space. The program marries real-time motion capture technology with guidance from physiotherapists and health coaches to create a complete, integrated care program.
We are still in the early rollout, but initial feedback from early consumers has been very positive.
Data-wise, Peach Health's model is to license clinically validated digital health products and use that existing evidence base for regulatory and commercial purposes. It's similar to how medtech and pharma distributors rely on data generated by product owners when bringing products into the region.
This ties directly to credibility: the partner product we incorporated into PeachCare Move has already been used by over 100,000 users and has a strong body of clinical evidence. We lean on that foundation when promoting the program.
Q: Peach Health Asia licenses and localises proven Western digital health products. What does "localising" entail in practice (language, regulatory, or workflow redesign), and how do you decide which global tools can genuinely fit Southeast Asian healthcare realities?
A: When entering a new market, Peach Health always starts with the problem statement: what is the largest unmet healthcare need in Asia that could be addressed by digital health technologies? Once we identify that, we look for the right technology and then run a standard licensing process with multiple partners until we find the best fit for both sides.
Localising can be as simple as language adaptation, but depending on the product type, it can require deeper work. For example, when I licensed depression and anxiety products from Happify (now part of Dario Health), their cognitive behavioural therapy models needed contextual adaptation for local markets. One of the biggest areas of localisation in Asia is actually the commercial model. Every country is different, and there is no traditional entry path for digital health. We've found that the same product, with some minor tweaks, can be commercialised through very unique and different commercial channels.
Choosing which digital health products fit Southeast Asia is grounded in the realities of each healthcare system. We always start with the problem first and assess whether a digital solution can meaningfully address it.
We firmly believe the gaps in healthcare access create strong opportunities in primary care and allied health areas, like joint pain management. There are excellent digital tools in, say, oncology, but outside advanced markets like Singapore and Australia, demand is low because delivering standard of care treatment is already challenging. So there is less interest, and even less willingness to pay, for supportive care products.
Q: At about SGD 120 per month (roughly $90), PeachCare Move is priced far below in-person physiotherapy. How do you make the economics work while scaling across diverse markets like Malaysia, Vietnam, and Indonesia, where reimbursement systems, digital literacy, and physiotherapy access differ widely? Are you pursuing insurer, employer, or provider partnerships to accelerate adoption?
A: The big value factor that digital health products can deliver is rebalancing how scarce and costly healthcare professionals spend their time in each program. In PeachCare Move, for example, the technology handles several pre-program assessments (range of motion and functional assessment tests) before the physiotherapist even speaks with the client, while still giving clinicians the data they need. This lets us use digital health tools to optimise human resources in our therapy programs.
Scaling a digital health program across different markets is actually easier than scaling physical products, as costs adjust automatically country by country. We pay digital health partners a percentage of revenue from our per-unit sales, and we work with local healthcare professionals in each market, which realigns the cost base of the program in each country. This is why we can adjust pricing to match affordability across markets.
As I mentioned earlier, there is an absolute need to recalibrate the go-to-market model for each country because market dynamics vary widely. In Singapore, for instance, we see the employee benefits channel as a potential pathway. In Indonesia, that channel is limited and would make it difficult to scale well.
Q: Singapore is your test bed, but digital rehabilitation is still a new terrain, and many remain sceptical about whether patients will trust or stick with it. How are you building credibility (clinically, technologically, and reputationally), and how do regulators currently classify your service? Looking ahead three years, what's your vision for Peach Health Asia's role in making digital therapy a mainstream part of care in the region?
A: To be honest, outside markets with very strong healthcare infrastructure (like Singapore), the unmet healthcare need creates a unique opportunity to support consumers who may not have many options. To build credibility, we collaborate closely with local experts and run targeted social media and marketing campaigns to raise awareness of Peach Health in our focus segments — starting with joint health. We also rely heavily on the track record our partners have already established in their own markets.
I noted before that our digital health support programs are centred around the consumer, so we expend a great deal of effort optimising our programs for consumers and engaging with them. We also use our partners’ regulatory status to guide our regulatory activities. For example, our partner product, TRAK Health, is a CE Mark Class I medical device in Europe, and we have obtained aligned approvals in the region.
Our vision for Peach Health is to become a recognised leader in digital health in Asia, supporting both consumers and business partners through a portfolio of digital health products and tech-enabled services like PeachCare Move.
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Payet's responses have been edited for brevity and clarity.
