Plenary Experts

Professor Kenneth Mak is Director-General of Health at the Ministry of Health Singapore.

In this role, Professor Mak is the principal medical adviser to the Singapore Government and provides professional input and guidance to other Ministries and public agencies on health and healthcare related issues.

Professor Mak oversees the provision of all health services in Singapore. Within the Ministry of Health, he ensures that clinical services are delivered seamlessly across multiple settings by the public healthcare system. He leads in developing and implementing national healthcare policies in areas such as population health, healthcare regulation, communicable diseases and non-communicable diseases, healthcare professional standards as well as the development and enhancement of the performance of the nation's healthcare system and services. Professor Mak works closely with Singapore's Regional Health Systems and healthcare institutions on care integration as well as on Singapore's long-term healthcare transformation strategy.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Professor Mak advised the Multi-Ministry Taskforce as well as other governmental agencies in crafting Singapore’s overall strategy for managing the outbreak and oversaw the integrated public health response to control the spread of COVID-19 in our community. Professor Mak is a familiar face in Singapore as he appeared regularly in the media conferences of the COVID-19 Multi-Ministry Taskforce.

Stefan Larsson, MD, PhD, trained at Karolinska Institute (KI), Harvard Medical School and MRC Human Genomics unit in UK, is an Associate Professor at KI.

He worked at The Boston Consulting Group 1996-2021. He was the founder and first leader of BCG’s Global Payer and Provider sector and its Health Systems sector. He led BCG’s work on Value based health care.

Stefan is a cofounder and the board chair of ICHOM, International Consortium of Health Outcomes Measurement, an independent not-for-profit organization. He is a Distinguished Fellow with the World Economic Forum. He published the book “The Patient Priority” and has >30 peer reviewed papers.

Sally Lewis, the founder of Kintsugi International, is a distinguished leader in the field of value-based healthcare (VBHC). With a remarkable career spanning 30 years as a general practitioner, medical leader and policy advisor, Sally has dedicated her career to transforming healthcare systems worldwide. She is now an international consultant on value-based healthcare system transformation and Professor of Value in Health Management at Swansea University’s Value-based Health and Care Academy.

As the former National Clinical Director for Value-Based and Prudent Healthcare in NHS Wales and the founder of the internationally recognised Welsh Value in Health Centre, she has pioneered the implementation of VBHC, making substantial contributions to global healthcare improvements. Her work has been recognised by many institutions including the World Economic Forum, Harvard Business School, Bertelsmann-Stiftung, OECD, HTAi and the Australian Healthcare and Hospitals Association. She is an international public speaker on health system transformation on the principles of value-based healthcare implementation.

Dr. Daphne Khoo currently serves as Senior Advisor to the Agency for Care Effectiveness (ACE) and Senior Consultant at the Director-General of Health Office. She was the founding Executive Director of ACE, Singapore's national Healthcare Technology Assessment Agency, which conducts clinical evaluation and assesses the cost-effectiveness of drugs and device classes prior to subsidies coverage decisions by the Ministry of Health (MOH). Under her leadership, ACE established MOH's Appropriate Care Guides which guide clinical practice nationally.

Previously, Dr. Khoo served as Deputy Director-General of Health (DDGH), Appropriate and Value-Based Care (AVBC), where she oversaw the establishment and formalisation of the AVBC framework aimed at improving and optimising clinical outcomes within available resources. She also held the position of Deputy Director-General of Health (Healthcare Performance Group), leading MOH teams overseeing Patient Safety, Clinical Outcomes, Value Driven Care, Population Health Indicators, Healthcare System Indicators and the National Improvement Unit.

Dr. Khoo received her Endocrinology training at the Singapore General Hospital and the Cleveland Clinic, USA. Her earlier career included clinical and translational research, as well as private sector experience as Chief Medical Officer at Fortis Healthcare, where she had responsibilities across 11 countries including India and Vietnam. She is a Past President of the Endocrine and Metabolic Society, Singapore, ASEAN Federation of Endocrine Societies as well as the Association of Women Doctors, Singapore.

Holger J. Schünemann is chair of the Guidelines International Network Board of Trustees and tenured professor and delegate for internationalization at Humanitas University in Milan, Italy, where he directs the WHO Collaborating Center for Evidence-based Decision-making in Health. He trained in respiratory and exercise physiology, lung biology, epidemiology, internal medicine and preventive medicine/public health.

He helped reshaping the guideline science spanning clinical medicine to public health and contributed methodologically and practically to knowledge synthesis research, foremost through his co-leadership of the GRADE working group (www.gradeworkinggroup.org) that he chairs and the INGUIDE program (INGUIDE.org). He authored over 900 peer-reviewed publications.

Adjunct Professor Lau Tang Ching is a Senior Consultant Rheumatologist in the Division of Rheumatology and Allergy, Department of Medicine in the National University Hospital. He is the Vice-Dean (Education) at NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine. He is also the Group Director (Education Office) at National University Health System. His main research interests are in Osteoporosis, Pharmacoeconomic Evaluation, Medical Education, and Evidence-Based Medicine.

Dr. Joe Yeong’s main research focus is to understand and overcome the resistance of cancer immunotherapy, by using advanced technologies and AI. As an immunopathologist, his key vision is to bridge immunologists and pathologists. He is a pioneer in spatial technologies, translated assays to clinic, and has published > 130 papers in the field (Top 2% Scientist) (>100 invited talks internationally). His works on cancer immunology are included in multiple National & international funded studies as well as industry sponsored projects (>20 million dollars since 2017).

He served as a committee member in the World Immunotherapy Council, Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC) and is one of the organizers for its 2019, 2023 & 2025 WIC Global Symposium as well as multiplex IF expert consensus meetings. He also serves as one of the founding-Program Chair of one of the largest AI medical Imaging conferences, CLINICCAI-MICCAI and serves as founding board member of MICCAI SIG-ComPath. He is also having editorial roles of Nature Springer, JITC, JCO (ASCO) and World Scientific (Chief Editor). He serves as a Secretary (Executive) in Singapore Society of Oncology – Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium, Co-lead in Education/Diagnostic of Singhealth Duke-NUS Cell Therapy Centre as well as Advisor (Spatial Technology), Cancer Discovery Hub, National Cancer Centre. In 2023, he co-founded World Immunotherapy Council Asian Chapter for promoting tumor immunology and advancing cancer immunotherapy education, information and research across Asia. He is also a regular reviewer for top journal such as JITC, Mod Path, Lancet and Nature.

Dr Loh is Group Chief Healthcare Officer at and a member of the Group Executive Committee at AIA. Dr. Loh has the overall group responsibility for the execution of AIA’s Integrated Healthcare Strategy as well as AIA’s health-related businesses. In his last role prior to joining AIA, Dr Kelvin Loh was the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of IHH Healthcare, a global healthcare provider.

Dr Loh is a senior business executive with experience in leading a large listed entity, building relationships with stakeholders, improving healthcare operations, clinical quality improvement, financial management and developing people. He is also deeply familiar with the healthcare operating context in different countries across Asia. He spent the early years of his career as a practicing general physician.

Scott Wallace is an Associate Professor at the Dell Medical School, University of Texas at Austin and the creator and lead faculty of the ICHOM Certified Value-Based Health Care Professional program. In 2023, he was awarded the President’s Associates Graduate Teaching Excellence Award, the University’s highest teaching prize recognizing educational innovation and teaching excellence. Before academia, he was a transactional attorney, founded a venture capital fund, and built a special chemical company. President George W. Bush appointed Scott chair of a federal commission that created the nation’s first health IT strategic plan. Scott earned law and graduate business degrees at the University of Chicago and his undergraduate degree at Duke.

Vincent joined the Ministry of Health as Deputy Secretary (Policy) on 1 April 2025. This is his second stint at the Ministry, where he also served between 2012 and 2016 in Healthcare Finance working on funding and subsidy policies for the intermediate and long-term care sector.

Prior to his current role, Vincent was Director, Land and Infrastructure Programmes in the Ministry of Finance from January 2021 to March 2025. He has also served in the Ministry of Education in the areas of Higher Education and Academic Research and in the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore in various policy, regulatory and operational roles.

Vincent graduated from the University College London with a Bachelor of Science in Economics. He holds a Master of Science in Transport from the Imperial College London, as well as a Master of Professional Accounting and a Master of Information Technology in Business from the Singapore Management University.

Assoc. Prof. Hairil Rizal Abdullah is a Senior Consultant Anesthesiologist at Singapore General Hospital (SGH). He revolutionized patient preparation for surgeries in SGH by founding the Preoperative Assessment Centre in 2014. His leadership in developing various programs like Patient Blood Management, Prehabilitation Service, and Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) has garnered both national and international recognition.

Honored with the prestigious Lee Kuan Yew Scholarship in 2022 and listed among the top 2% of globally cited scientists, Assoc Prof Hairil was also awarded the Clinician Scientist Award by Singapore’s National Medical Research Council in 2023. He currently leads the Value Based Healthcare initiatives in both SingHealth and SGH, and was awarded the “Distinguished Champion of Change Leader Award” by SingHealth in 2022 for his transformative contributions to healthcare.

Adj Assoc. Prof. Diarmuid Murphy is a graduate of the Royal College of Surgeon in Ireland and has worked as an orthopaedic surgeon in Singapore since 2007. He first became involved in Value Driven Care (VDC) when NUH introduced the concept to Singapore in 2016. He was appointed Chief Value Officer for NUH in 2018 and Group Chief Value Officer for NUHS in May 2019, chairs the National Value Driven Care committee and helms a dedicated team at NUHS that oversees the collection of data on quality and cost of care for specific medical and surgical conditions across the cluster. This is performed at primary, secondary and tertiary care levels, enabling data driven improvement to clinical care pathways. In 2024, he was part of the team that introduced Appropriate Care to NUHS and leads the Appropriate & Value Based Healthcare (AVBC) efforts across the cluster.

Professor John Abisheganaden is a Director and Senior Consultant at Health Services and Outcomes Research (HSOR), NHG Health. He holds a Fellowship from the Royal College of Physicians, Edinburgh UK; a MMED (Internal Medicine) from NUS Singapore, as well as a FAMS (Respiratory Med) from the Academy of Medicine Singapore. He leads the HSOR team in population decision analytics and operations research, implementation and outcomes evaluation, as well as health system performance and sustainability. He is a Senior Consultant in Respiratory & Critical Care Medicine at Tan Tock Seng Hospital, and he is also chair of the NHG Health Respiratory Health Steering Committee, and the medical lead for value-based care for the NHG Health cluster.

Dr Albert Ty’s work in the Ministry is focused on driving the development and implementation of national policies, frameworks or processes aimed at promoting a culture of appropriate and value-based care, patient safety, high reliability, and continuous quality improvement in Singapore healthcare institutions. Prior to this, Dr Ty had extensive public health leadership experience in the Ministry including work on health promotion strategies, non-communicable disease epidemiology and control, public health intelligence, and specialist training and assessments.

Dr Ty is a neurologist/neuro-oncologist and a public health specialist by training. He holds a master’s degree in public health from the National University of Singapore and a master’s degree in health policy, planning and financing from the London School of Economics/London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Before joining the Ministry of Health, he had clinical and research stints at the National Neuroscience Institute, the National Cancer Centre, Singapore and the Singapore General Hospital.