Medical devices park making world class medical products from Telangana

Telangana has been a front-runner in the field of lifesciences, and is also one of the first States in India to recognize medical devices as a high-potential and high growth sector. To address the issue of growing import dependence on Medical Devices in the country, the State Government had established the Medical Devices Park in 2017. Within a short span of 5 years, the Medical Devices Park today is India’s biggest functional medical devices cluster offering facilities that support innovation, research & development, manufacturing as well as warehousing and logistics. Over 50 companies are setting up their R&D and Manufacturing facilities in the park, generating over 7,000 jobs and attracting over INR 1500 crore of investments. The park is home to the Asia’s largest stent manufacturing facility of SMT with capacity of a million stents and 1.25 mn balloon catheters. In addition, marquee companies like Medtronic, B-Braun, etc have also invested in the sector.

How did the growth happen despite the Covid slowdown? Stable governance and policy support were the driving factors says Shakthi Nagappan Director (Life Sciences and Pharma), Telangana government. “The Medical Devices Park is a key enabler to our multiprong strategy of promoting the Life Sciences Ecosystem in the state of Telangana. The state is already a powerhouse in the Life Sciences sector and in addition, Hyderabad has numerous companies with expertise in plastics, precision engineering, electronics, etc., all of which are vital for medical device innovators and manufacturers. As a natural outcome, the city is already making rapid strides in redefining healthcare”.

The government has adopted a holistic approach towards the sector by focusing on Innovation, Scale-up and Manufacturing. Government of Telangana works hand-in-hand with the industries to scale, innovate and efficiently manufacture the essential medicines and medical devices including providing a preferential procurement status to the investors in the park.

One of the recent success stories is of Akriti Ophthalmic Pvt. Ltd. Akriti was established in medical Devices Park, Sultanpur, in 2018 and has provided employment to over 400 employees. The company is led by Dr Kuldeep Raizada, an eye care professional and Dr Deepa Rani Diddi an Alumni of Kings College London. Akriti owns over 18 Patents and 27 copyrighted products for global Market.

When the government of Telangana decided to launch phase 2 of the Kanti Velugu program and was looking to procure 35 lakh spectacles for the same, it needn’t look far. Akriti manufactured and supplied over 10 lakh spectacle units to the government in a record time of 90 days. The 100 day government program aims towards a “Avoidable blindness free” Telangana and provides universal eye screening and distribution of up to 60 lakh eyeglasses free of cost to those who require them.

With more factories getting operationalised in the Medical Devices Park, coupled with an enabling policy environment to help companies move up the value chain and build products of relevance not just for India but for the world, Hyderabad is soon to become a global leader in the medical devices sector as well. Sakshi