Future of MedTech industry

In our day-to-day life, we come across so many medical devices without even realizing it. The glasses you wear, or the fitness band showing your heart rate, the home glucometer, and even the weighing machine are a kind of medical device.

India’s demand for medical devices has been consistently increasing over the last few decades, mainly due to increased health insurance penetration, an aging population, and a rise in medical tourism. Industry experts are predicting that India’s market for medical devices will grow up to USD 50 billion by 2025.

Currently, the medical devices industry in India is estimated to be around USD 8 billion, out of which almost USD 6 billion worth is imported. This high dependency on imports makes medical devices expensive and inaccessible to the majority of India’s population.

With the help of the Make in India initiative, many start-ups started getting support to build medical devices indigenously. But unlike other sectors, MedTech is highly regulated. Every products need to be certified by the regulating bodies. For new start-ups, building a working prototype, getting it tested and certified before manufacturing for market is not easy.

This highlights the need for an institution where research and development, testing and validation, component production, and manufacturing, all happen in a single eco-system. Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone, commonly known as AMTZ, was envisioned as an ecosystem.

If you build it, they will come. This is a famous line from the film – Field of Dreams. AMTZ too believes that – For the right occupants to come, the right facilities need to be built.

AMTZ houses 18 common scientific facilities across its 270 acres of campus, such as the center for electromagnetic compatibility and safety testing, center for biomaterial testing, center for 3-D printing, centers for lasers, MRI coils, gamma irradiation, molding, and many other industrial service centers.

The Covid-19 pandemic showed how ill-prepared every country was to deal with a crisis of this magnitude. Right from the beginning of the pandemic, there was an acute shortage of essentials like N95 masks, Covid-testing kits, and life-saving medical devices like ventilators.

During the peak of the pandemic, most countries had export regulations, making it difficult to import. AMTZ rose to the challenge and in the nation’s battle against the pandemic, AMTZ contributed by producing over 100 ventilators, 500 oxygen concentrators, and 1 million RT-PCR kits every day. Many innovations from AMTZ, such as mobile container hospitals, mobile RT-PCR vehicles, and mobile oxygen plants were sent even to the remotest parts of the country, democratizing affordability and availability.

AMTZ currently offers over 150 medical devices across various categories. Indigenous manufacturing of high-end medical devices like ventilators and oxygen concentrators is keeping the prices low, thus making them affordable and accessible to all.

When a medical device is expensive and the need for the product is occasional, then renting instead of buying becomes a preferred option. This is when a device becomes a service.

Over the next year, the MedTech industry will see a shift from consumption-based healthcare to value-based healthcare. This will include cost reduction as well as solving accessibility challenges through the adoption of technology and innovation. My vision is to democratize the medical technology industry so that access to high-quality healthcare is cost-effective and accessible to all.

MedTech industry is shifting from patients coming to devices to devices reaching the patients. AMTZ started various initiatives as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic, which is continuing to bring health directly to the home.

Initiatives like I-Lab (infectious disease diagnostic lab) have a mobile bio-safe facility capable of RT-PCR, ELISA, and 30 more tests to ensure ease of testing in rural areas. O2Home makes oxygen concentrators directly available to end-users on a rental basis through a mobile app. Vision2Home is a program to bring the convenience of vision testing to the comfort of each citizen’s neighborhood.

The eco-system built by AMTZ is unique, and the pandemic showed that this model not only works but is also the need of the hour.

Medical Technology has become a sector that has survived the uncertainties of economic turbulence as well as showcased its life-saving capacity for social good. AMTZ stands tall today by virtue of its servitude to the country in protecting the health of people by supplying affordable, accessible, and good-quality products across multiple states, and hospitals in geographies. We remain committed to delivering independence from import dependency and making India a proud leader in medical technology development and production.