
 |
Dr. Ravi
Kumar Meruva
Founder & CEO,
Sensa Core Medical Instrumentation (P) Limited |
Dr. Ravi Kumar Maruva shared his
decision for choosing the less travelled road of IVD
industry, focussing on instrumentation rather than on
reagents. In his opinion closed systems in
biochemistry or haematology secure higher margins as
compared to open systems in instrumentation. His
company was into the manufacturing of variety of
electrodes, functioning for a span of 8-10 years, this
makes the heart of a technology so robust. Therefore,
it was easier for the company to design a body around
the heart designed earlier. Since most of the
manufactures are moving towards closed systems, so it
was a very judicial decision that has an exponential
growth, ahead. |
 |
Dr. Rajesh
Kumar Patel
Director,
Premier Medical Corporation (P) Limited |
Dr. Rajesh Kumar addressed the
challenges and strengths of being an export centric
company in IVD. He opined that export to other
countries opens up avenues in multiple markets, a
larger scale production reduces the manufacturing
costs, diversification & reduced risk; compensation of
seasonal demands, improvement in the life cycle of the
product, enhancement in knowledge due to more R & D to
meet the international quality & standards are the
other benefits of being in the export segment. He
added that the challenges of being in this segment can
also not be ignored as being in export, there is
financial risk along with delay in payments,
requirements for country specific product
modifications, large product configurations and the
inventory management. He also made the manufactures
aware of the importance of WHO prequalification and
its procedure. |
 |
Mr.
Sanjaymon K R
General Manager, Business Development
Agappe Diagnostics Ltd. |
Mr. Sanjaymon shared “Innovation,
Quality & Affordability” have been the success mantra
of Agappe. To answer the question on systematic steps
taken towards indigenisation, he opined that the key
step is the industry- industry partnership, Industry-
academia partnership and more of localization for
accessories and/or spare parts. That will involve more
people, more jobs & thereby more employment. This will
fulfil our true mission towards “Make in India” or
made in India products. On sharing his experience on
LAMP and its future in Indian diagnostics, he viewed
that there has been innovation in LAMP in the last 5-6
years, this technology reduces the cost of hardware &
is faster than RT PCR, nested PCR or CRISPR
technology, possibly giving results with 10 min after
doing the assay and also the results can be visualised
as positive or negative. Further, transportation of
reagents at -20oC in remote areas especially in India
is a major challenge. LAMP based reagents could be
transported at 2 to 8oC, even the cartridges of LAMP
can be stored at RT. Covid-19 has changed the
expectations of molecular based testing, with patients
demanding results in an hour or even less, innovation
in LAMP by the manufactures & researchers becomes all
the more important. |
 |
Dr. Vishal
Warke
Director R&D,
HiMedia Laboratories (P) Limited |
Dr. Vishal Warke, from Hi -Media -
a name synonymous with culture media globally, shared
how indigenization of technology over more than four
decades, has been the success mantra of his company
in-spite of all odds, leading it to become one of the
top three culture media companies in the world. He
addressed the reason behind the presence of a very few
players in the culture media industry. Firstly, the
segment has a small ticket size as compared to
pharmaceuticals and diagnostics. Secondly, most of its
resources come from nature e. g. ocean & seaweed
because of which there is batch to batch variation and
converting them into a standard product to get
sustainable desired results that too in the absence of
any defined technology, is the most challenging aspect
of this segment. He also shared how the challenging
situation faced by Dr. Warke, Founder & MD of
Hi- Media while doing his doctorate due to scarcity of
media became an impetus for the growth of Hi-Media
company. Though the journey has been tough but the
feeling of working for their nation and humanity gives
tremendous satisfaction. Since most of the
microbiology grade agar comes from cooler climate &
oceans of certain type of nature, therefore, the
observation of stripping off the natural resources,
being one of the reasons for global warming has made
company to lead to improvise, switch over to other
substitutes and go “Animal Free”. Due to these major
changes today Hi-Media is exporting its products to
150 countries across the globe diversifying from
microbiology to stem cell, vaccine, therapeutics,
plant tissue culture, hydroponics, fermentation media
and most recently the rapid test medias, where
different bacteria form different colour colonies etc. |
 |
Dr. Manoj
Chugh
Associate Vice President
R&D, Transasia Bio-Medicals Limited |
Dr. Manoj Chugh highlighted on how
crucial is the role R & D in making Indian IVD
companies successful. He opined that innovation was
critical to the growth & progress of all industries
across all sectors. Earning out in diagnostics is
difficult as there are multiple stakeholders like lab
personnel, hospital personnel and now a day’s patients
too are well informed about the advancement. Pre-
Covid times, Indian firms primarily imported low-cost
tests developed elsewhere rather than developing
entirely a new technology, competing against each
other only. Now is the move from incremental
innovation to radical innovation and that is the only
mantra to compete with multinational companies which
have the additional advantage of financial resources,
powerful branding, high note management & marketing
skills. Players in IVD industry focusing from volume
to value will gain influence & have a competitive edge
in the long run. It becomes important for all
innovators to acquire significant
share not only in the domestic but also in the
international market. If we can supply diagnostic
tests to International disease control initiative, we
are winning. Thus, Dr. Chugh very well-articulated the
importance of R & D and innovations that can never be
under estimated in any industry including the IVD. He
also explained that in recent
times there has been a surge seen in industry
academia collaboration that needs to be further
sustained in future too. According to him, Innovation
with indigenization demands multiple needs e. g.
working outside main stream paradigm, large leaps of
understanding, a new way of looking at the problem and
considerable changes in higher technology are
required. To win this, keeping in mind the mantra of
“High risk & higher rewards” two systems seamlessly
needs to collaborate i.e.
generate knowledge through academia and to use or
consume it through industry. So that even if there is
a global arrest, we do not suffer to procure even the
critical raw material. Recently, even the triple helix
model where academia, industry & Govt. collaborated
through Niti-Ayog has been fruitful. |
 |
Dr. D.K.
Joshi
IPP, ADMI & Managing Director,
Beacon Diagnostics (P) Ltd. |
Dr. Joshi threw light on the most
awaited & concerned issue of IVD industry by all
manufactures i.e. the support Indian IVD would require
from the Govt. He stressed that the Indian IVD
industry had been focusing mainly on reagents but
during the last 3-4 years, device lock systems has
restricted this. Every high-tech instrumentation
company should tie up with local manufactures and this
will boost up Atma-Nirbharta by initiating some
provision of high duty by the Govt of India. He also
highlighted that most of diagnostic industry in India
is MSME, developing an infrastructure and spending
huge money on R & D is quite challenging. Under these
circumstances the Govt of India rather than providing
any subsidy or production linked incentives, should
cluster a group of selected companies which could
bring technology to India, and Govt negotiates on
behalf of those to divide the cost of technology
transfer among the interested companies. The reduced
in cost would give hope to the manufactures to keep
momentum in Indian IVD industry. In-fact this very
promising proposal was appreciated by Ms. Veena Kohli
and would be discussed by ADMI for further perusal. |
 |
Conclusion
and Vote of Thanks
Mr. Abhinav Thakur
Secretary, ADMI & Managing Director,
Accurex Biomedical (P) Limited
The panel discussion was concluded
with summarising note of the speakers and a vote of
Thanks by Mr. Abhinav Thakur, Secretary, ADMI &
managing director, Accurex Biomedical (P) Ltd. |
|
|
|
Advertisers' Index
|
Accuprec Research Labs Pvt. Ltd., India |
Ambica Medicare Engineering, India |
Nu-Vu Conair Pvt. Ltd., India |
Divya Steri Solutions Pvt. Ltd., India |
ET Elastomer Technik, Germany |
Eewa Engineering Co. Pvt. Ltd., India |
Ineos Styrolution India Ltd., India |
I-Kare Polyalloys Pvt. Ltd., India |
KLJ
Group, India |
Lubrizol Advanced Materials India Pvt.
Ltd. |
Kuraray India Pvt. Ltd., India |
Maider Medical Industry Equipment Ltd.China |
Medicall 2019, India |
Ferromatik Milacron India Pvt. Ltd., India |
GLR Laboratories
Pvt. Ltd., India |
Pashiba Lifescience, India |
Plastivision India |
Pradeep Surgipack, India |
PVC Colouring Compounding & Processing,
India |
Qosina,
USA |
Raumedic AG |
SMC Medical Manufacturing Pvt. Ltd.,
India |
Sterimed Medical Devices (P) Ltd., India |
Steri Techno Fab, India |
Tekni-Plex India Pvt. Ltd., India |
Twist Engineering Works,India |
Yuhuan Shengjiu Mould Co., Ltd.,
China |
Airways Surgical Pvt. Ltd., India |
Alpha Medicare and Devices Ltd., India |
Alpha Therapeutics Pvt. Ltd., India |
Ami
Polymer Pvt. Ltd., India |
Angiplast Pvt. Ltd., India |
Appasamy Associates, India |
Beacon Plastics, India |
Delux Surgical, Inida |
Ignisol Mediplas Corporation, India |
Jain Rubbers Pvt. Ltd., India |
Operon Strategist, India |
R.R. Patel Gases (P) Ltd., India |
Proven Trade Contacts, India
|
Sanidhya
Enterprise, India |
Surgi Pack India Pvt. Ltd. |
Unikal Consultants, India |
Vinit Performance Polymers Pvt. Ltd., India |
Aircity, India |
Amigo Surgi Care
Pvt. Ltd., India |
Angel Products, India |
Apex Medical Devices, India |
Jimit Medico Surgicals Pvt. Ltd. |
Kavya Packaging, India |
Life-O-Line Technologist, India |
Mesco Surgical, India |
Morrisons
Lifecare Pvt. Ltd., India |
National Healthcare, India |
Pharmadocx, Inida |
S. Nath & Co., India |
Unikal Consultants, India |
Venus
Industries,India, Mobile : 9825747495 |
Zinkal Products, India |
|