India based healthcare/medical devices organizations are making their mark in the medical technology field. Here are few of the medical technology Indian companies that are funded by venture capitalists and whose products are gaining widespread application in emerging countries such as India and also knocking on the doors of developed markets such as US and Europe.
Medical Devices:
The robot products developed by Perfint Technologies are used for ablation, drug delivery and biopsy. These affordable and unique devices are sold under the brand name ‘Robio’ in SE Asian countries, Europe and Latin America. This four year old start-up is now working to develop a new robot product, Maxio, which will make complex life-saving procedures much easier to perform with high success rate and with the introduction of which Perfint plans to enter markets like the US, Japan and Korea. The price of these devices ranges from $150,000 to $300,000. With $17 million from various venture capitalist and current revenue hovering around Rs. 50 crore, Perfint aims to ten-fold the revenue to around Rs. 550 crore in the next four years.
Nano Drugs:
Invictus Oncology, a Delhi-based start-up is developing a drug smaller than one-thousandth the diameter of a human hair, which immerses into the tumor, shrinks it by cutting off blood supply and continues to sit on the tumor till it dies. The brain behind this technology built it in his lab in Harvard Medical School and has been further developed by a group of scientists who relocated to India.
Diagnostics:
Core Diagnostics, a Gurgaon-based start-up, offers specialized tests in cardiology, endocrinology and oncology which are unavailable in India. Patients used to send the test samples overseas and the results came back in around three weeks costing about Rs. 20,000 to Rs. 1 lakh. Core diagnostics, backed by Artiman Ventures, aims to make these tests available in India for as low as Rs. 4000 to Rs. 50,000 with results in just 48 hours. This startup has tied with 50 specialists and physicians working in US to train their Indian counterparts.
Computational Imaging:
Tonbo Imaging, a startup in Bangalore, has developed an imaging technology that has also made inroads into the defense technology such as drones of the armed forces around the globe. Artiman Ventures have infused Rs. 34 crore in this startup that will be utilized for R&D enhancement and team expansion in India, the U.S and Israel.
Personalized Cancer Therapy:
Mitra Biotech, a Bangalore-based bio-technology organization, has developed the ‘OncoprintR’ technology that allows doctors to differentiate with great deal of accuracy the drugs which will work on a cancer patient from the drugs which will have no clinical effect. This technology saves the patient from undergoing a series of drug regimes that often results in side-effects and associated complications. Mitra has struck a deal with several leading hospitals in India and abroad for delivering personalizes treatment options. Imagine what changes this technology can bring in a country like India where nearly 6 lakhs Indians die of cancer every year where 70% of them belong to the age group 30-70yrs.
Stem Cells:
Stempeutics Research, a startup focused on stem cells in alliance with Vignani technologies, a niche engineering services company is developing ‘Stempeuron’ an automated, point-of-care medical device for isolation of stem cells from humans. The device helps to extract good stem cells out of the tissue quickly whereas the current procedure of bringing fat tissues to the lab and processing it for isolating stem cells is time consuming, cumbrous and has a poor viability rate. The alliance is working to reduce the cost of their device to below Rs. 20 lakh that is much below the cost of such devices in US which is around Rs. 1 crore.
India ranks 4th in global general cosmetic surgery market, which is valued at $40. Billion in 2013, with 850,000 cosmetic surgeries a year compared to US, ranked 1st with 3,100,000 such procedures. Indian firms such as Stempeutics and Vignani which are still in the research and development phase are leaving no stone unturned to make a mark in such markets and increase their presence across the globe. This new crop of go-getters and innovative startups are here to make a difference and bring India on the medical technology globe in the years to come. Watch out for the rise of similar Indian organizations and make their mark.
