Medical device manufacture heading to India
A thinning medical pipeline in the West could lead medical device manufacturers to migrate to India, a Cambridge University lecture was told.
India, China and Israel could join forces in the next decade or so to develop devices at dedicated innovation centres for western consumption, Professor Balram Bhargava told Judge Business School.A leader in the field of medical device innovation, he predicts that India is poised to lead in a decade of frugal and therefore affordable innovation that will impact on global economies.
Professor Bhargava, of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, is a renowned cardiologist and a champion of biomedical innovation, public health, medical education and research.
Having established the Centre for Excellence for Stem Cell Studies he achieved a world-first in the treatment of patients suffering from dilated cardiomyopathy.
Prof Bhargava’s lecture at Judge - Challenges and Opportunities for Healthcare Innovation in India - centred on medical device innovation and highlighted interdisciplinary collaboration between doctors, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs.
Prof Bhargava said: “There is a thinning medical pipeline in the west. Most of the manufacturing is moving to countries like India and China. The cost of production has gone up tremendously in the west and what is going to happen in the next decade or so is that countries like India, China and Israel will combine forces and work together.
“Innovation centres are developing in these countries and they will probably develop devices that will ultimately be accepted by the west, be partnered by the west and therefore western companies will move to Indian soil to manufacture.”
Prof Bhargava has promoted the India-Stanford Biodesign programme, a unique interdisciplinary programme to foster innovation, design in low cost implants/devices.
This fellowship on biomedical technology innovation has led to over 20 patents on low cost medical devices. He is currently developing the chest compression device for sudden cardiac death patients, funded by the Wellcome Trust.
Professor Bhargava is providing leadership for creative disease prevention, early detection and transport system for sick cardiac patients. He has been awarded the SN Bose Centenary award by the Indian National Science Congress and National Academy of Sciences Platinum Jubilee Award, Tata Innovation Fellowship and Vasvik Award for Biomedical Technology Innovation.
• PHOTOGRAPH SHOWS: Professor Balram Bhargava
