Keychain-sized ECG devices to under-mattress health trackers

With digital tech, Indian ventures create innovative medical devices

- Akhil George

Watching people gasp for breath can be terrible. And it’s something that Ashok Patel had to come face to face with again and again during the early 1990s. During those days, Ambu bags were used to provide artificial respiration during surgeries. These bags were hand-held self-inflatable bags used to force-feed air into patients’ lungs. They are incredibly useful for short durations, but were impractical for continuous long-term use.

“In the early 1990s, a senior director of Baroda Hospital came to us and asked for a solution to the complicated procedure of Ambu bags, and after working for around six years, we were able to make a mechanical ventilator,” says Patel, founder & CEO of Max Ventilator. The Vadodara-based company hasn’t looked back since, but it was a massive challenge then to build and manufacture a complicated med-tech device like a ventilator in India.

The situation, luckily, is very different now. Max recently launched a non-invasive ventilator that is intelligent (automatically adjusting to patient’s needs), and costs only a quarter of a traditional ventilator. And they aren’t the only ones making breakthroughs in the med-tech space. A host of local startups have entered the sector over the last few years, bringing a gust of fresh air into the crucial field. Global med-tech giants like GE Healthcare, Philips, and Siemens Healthineers also do substantial R&D and product development out of India, and have been instrumental in creating an innovative ecosystem in the country.