Time to build Indian Medtech industry to global reckoning

India has built amazing infrastructure of science especially interdisciplinary and translational aspects of biology in the last 15 years despite history of low level of investments both in R&D (0.8 per cent of the GDP) as well as healthcare (1.3 per cent of the GDP). This needs to change not just as a stopgap measure but greater investment, consistently over a longerrange horizon, is important. And there is need to leverage the strengths and find strategic responses to the gaps in a mission mode.

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Over the last decade there has been a major push to develop homegrown medtech product startups in healthcare and other areas of biotech. Several agencies notably Department of Science & Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology- Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (DBT-BIRAC), Millennium Alliance, Indo-U.S. Science and Technology Forum (IUSSTF), Atal Innovation Mission (AIM)-Niti Aayog and others have contributed to injecting funding and other support mechanisms to build 3000- 4000 biotech/medtechstartups as well as 200 S&T incubators in the country.

This arguably is a national portfolio that has been built through taxpayer's money and painstaking efforts of various stakeholders, most notably the leadership shown by incubators. The incubators housing them are analogous to an “asset house”.

The innovation community has responded with a can-do attitude and have scrambled to kick start COVID-19 focused solutions. The Principal Scientific Adviser’s (PSA) Office has constituted several task forces that are co-ordinating different aspects of the response with speed and precision.

COVID-19 Funding: Fast decisions

Most Science & Technology arms of the Government of India have launched COVID-19 specific funding calls, be it CAWACH by DST, Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) labs, DBT-BIRAC (a special COVID-19 call), Technology Development Board (TDB) and Invest India as well as big incubators such as IKP Knowledge Park (IKP), Venture Center, SINE-IIT Bombay, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), SIIC- IIT Kanpur, AIC-CCMB and FITT-IIT Delhi amongst others.