our bioeconomy.
“The biggest market
in Indian healthcare
is government that is
responsible for delivery
of public health,” says Dr
Soumya Swaminathan,
Director general, Indian
Council for Medical
Research (ICMR). “There
are many innovative
products that require
benchmarking at the well-
equipped laboratories.
Need pathways for such
products. DBT-ICMR
worked on a molecular
diagnostic product for TB.
There is another example
of highly focused targeted
therapy for muscular
dystrophy. Therapy being
tested in one year. We had
successful India-Africa
Summit last year and let
me inform that lot of our
technologies received
orders from African
nations especially Ghana.”
Dr Swaminathan also
stressed on the need
to create new public
trials capacity (phase
I, II, III and IV trials).
She elaborated: “Most
of the companies go
abroad. Need to change
that. Ethics being
revised currently, the
Technological push
for agriculture we can think of. The
utilization of existing
networks of Indian
Council for Agricultural
Research (ICAR) is the
easiest way to reach out
to farmers and connect
them with technology or
solution providers. Dr
Trilochan Mohapatra,
Director General, ICAR
is of the opinion that
despite availability of the
huge genetic resources
including animal, plant,
fish genetic ones., we
haven’t really understood
the worth of all the
data. “India must be
able to make use of this
genetic resources. For
example, the harvesting
of Artemisinin in tobacco
plant (chloroplast) is
a unique way of best
solution for malaria but
the commercial advantage
has not been really made
in India. Need to focus
on unmet needs.”
Agriculture can be the big
growth driver for Indian
economy provided we can
produce more crops from
lesser area. Innovative
indigenous economical
solutions developed by
our own startups can
help in doing that in a
much faster way than Dr Mohapatra expressed
his dissatisfaction over
the way India has been
overtly relying only on
imported technologies.
“Bt cotton is being talked
about as success but it is
a burrowed technology.
We must promote
indigenous technologies
stemcell guidelines
shall be soon out too.
Working with NICE UK
to develop capacities.”
“We never exploited the
potential of products e are
sitting on. We are strong
in biopharma except
API. Yet we have been
unsuccessful in making
it bigger, mentioned,” Dr
Jitendar Sharma, CEO,
Andhra Med Tech Zone
who added, “The idea of
‘Healthcare ATMs’ where
the common man could
get his health-related
solutions, is an innovative
one. We require the
MedTech Assessment
Board that would look at
the tariff duties, obsolete
rules and set up a cell
to suggest unmet needs
and need of relevant
medical technologies.”
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