India's Med-tech Marathon
In an industry dominated by
global giants, medical devices startups are making inroads with technology
that's advanced, affordable and more accessible.
Dr Sheela CN, head of the
obstetrics de partment at St. Johns Medical College Hospital in Bengaluru,
seems pleased with a new product she's testing to detect fetal distress during
childbirth.“We are testing this device to see if it can help us (diagnose)
high-risk problems during delivery earlier than the existing devices. That will
help us intervene and prevent adverse effects on the baby,“ she said.
Undetected fetal
distress--such as when an unborn child does not receive enough oxygen-account
for about 3 lakh fetal or child deaths in India every year, according to the
World Health Organisation. Existing technology to detect fetal distress is too
expensive and, thus, not easily accessible. It is also too complicated even for
doctors. You could substitute fetal distress with another condition or ailment
and the equipment with another, but the core problem of exorbitant pricing and
inaccessible and difficult technology untiringly replicates itself.
The solution may lie within
the dozens of labo ratories and workspaces where startups such as Forus Health,
Remidio and Sattva Medtech are developing advanced yet easy-to-use devices at
lower cost.Taking on the global giants that dominate India's medical devices
industry and despite unfavourable domestic regulations, these startups promise
to make lifesaving medical technology more accessible in a country where
quality and affordable healthcare is scarce.,especially in any place that's not
a major city.
Sattva CEO Vibhav Joshi
said the idea for Fetal Lite, which Sheela is testing, came from his
gynaecologist mother who uses the only approved device type available in India
to screen for fetal distress.It is huge, requires constant power supply and a
skilled obstetrician to be present at all times to interpret the data it
sprouts.
Fetal Lite, Joshi says, is
light and can be worn by mothers around their abdomen and be recharged via a
USB port. It uses proprietary algorithm to track a foetus's movement, measure
heart beats and can send alerts to the doctor's mobile phone in an emergency.
He plans to price the device at around `1 lakh, about two-thirds cheaper than
devices manufactured by General Electric and Philips. Sattva has so far raised
a seed round from InnAccel and a grant from BITS Charitable Trust.
India's medical devices
industry is growing at about 15% annually and is expected to reach at least
$25-30 billion (` 1.65-1.98 lakh crore) by 2025, according to a report in March
by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India, driven by indigenous manufacturing, exports
and local innovation. But the industry is fragmented, price-sensitive and faces
constraints such as erratic power supply, low doctor-patient ratio and a
shortage of trained personnel to handle complex devices, pain areas startups
are trying to tide over to achieve market acceptance.
The affordability and
increased reach that these startups bring are also particularly crucial.Medical
technology contributes significantly to healthcare delivery costs in India,
with medical devices and diagnostics accounting for 20%-25% of the cost of
medical services, according to Deloitte.
“We are seeing Indian
medical devices startups being able to innovate and bring products to the
market faster than their western counterparts at a price point that is very
attractive,“ said Barath Shankar Subramanian, vice president at venture capital
firm Accel Partners, an early backer of Forus Health, a maker of affordable
eye-screening devices, and Perfint Healthcare, which works in the areas of
cancer and pain care. “We will continue to identify and invest in such
differentiated opportunities,“ Subramanian said. Accel has 10 healthcare
technology startups in its investment portfolio.
Remidio, which makes
eye-care diagnostics technology, has so far commercially launched two
products--smartphone-based Fundus on Phone and Angio on Touch diagnostic imaging
system. While obtaining a complete image of the retina would require a
wide-field imaging camera that costs about `65 lakh, Remidio's Fundus on Phone,
priced `1.8 lakh, can connect to a mobile phone camera to take pictures of the
central part of the retina. It is highly useful in early detection of diabetic
retinopathy.
“This is a marathon, not a
sprint,“ said Anand Sivaraman, CEO at Remidio, an IIT-Kharagpur alumnus who
previously worked at General Electric and biotechnology firm Reametrix. His
startup, has raised $1 million from UK based Welcome Trust and a group of angel
investors.The startup has achieved 300 installations across hospitals and
private opthalmologist clinics in the past 22 months.
There are scores of
startups dotting India's medical technology sector focused on niche, marketable
segments. Coeo Labs has designed a device to tackle ventilator-associated
pneumonia, a major cause of death in roughly 40% of patients on breathing
support in India. Wrig Nanosystems, which is backed by Flipkart founders Sachin
Bansal and Binny Bansal and former Ranbaxy and Fortis promoters Malvinder Singh
and Shivinder Singh, among others, has developed a mobile phone-sized device
called TrueHb Hemometer to measure haemoglobin in a few minutes.
“There would be over 150
odd-companies at various development stages with high concentration in areas
such as ECG monitoring, patient monitoring and in areas such as point-of-care
screening and diagnostic tools for haemoglobin, glucose and others,“ said Siraj
Dhanani, CEO at InnAccel, an accelerator focused on healthcare startups such as
Coeo Labs. “The quality of startups is improving because the body of knowledge
is expanding on what works and what doesn't.“
The road has never been
smooth, however, for med-tech startups in India. “There is a huge backlog with
the patent office, which often stifles innovation,“ said Dhanani.
“The government should
create a favourable regime for products that are designed and developed in
India because these are specifically designed for the Indian market.“
Without that kind of local
support, overseas markets become key to expanding the playing field, at least
for older startups.
“The idea is to build a
product that works in the existing market as well as opens up new markets,“
said K Chandrasekhar, CEO at the 2010-founded Forus Health.“There are no
shortcuts,“ he said , pointing to the fact that while it takes more than two
years to develop and test a product, it takes three-four years to build the
brand.
Forus's strategy to gain
market acceptance was to tweak its product to suit the working style of
ophthalmologists while adding advanced features such as telemedicine.
The company, which has
raised upwards of $13 million from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures and other
investors, is also enhancing service quality and after-sales support to win
trust.“As the initial set of companies are able to gain share globally, the
others will follow suit,“ said Subramanian of Accel Partners.
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Taslima Khan
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ET1APR16
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