Speaking at the 7th Medical Technology Conference organised by the Medical Technology Division of Confederation of Indian Industry in New Delhi today, Mr Amitabh Kant said “Therefore it is essential that the sector exploits the cost advantage it wants to compete with China for the global market.”
Mr Kant, along with other senior bureaucrats such as Union Health Secretary Lov Verma and Dr K Vijay Raghavan from Govt of India and leading Captains of Medical Technology Industry were present at the event to unveil the ‘Vision Document – 2025’, an extensive report on the Medical Technology sector jointly prepared by CII and Boston Consulting Group.
As per the Vision Document, getting things right could lead to a $30 billion domestic market opportunity as well as setting up the right manufacturing capabilities could spur an additional $20 billion manufacturing opportunity for the Indian medical technology space.
Mr Verma, Union Health Secretary, said “the Medical Technology sector should also look at CSR initiatives at promoting sanitation like building toilets in schools”. While, Dr K Vijay Raghavan, Secretary, Dept of Biotechnology under Ministry of Science & Technology accepted that local innovation has to be promoted if the sector has to realise its true potential and that Govt will have to play a leading, guiding role to ensure that.
The CII Director General, Mr Chandrajit Banerjee, said, “Due to its pleasure and potential CII is happy to acknowledge the Medical Technology Sector as a sunrise sector”
Expanding on the theme of effective governance, Mr Pavan Choudary, Chairman, Medical Technology Division of the CII and Managing Director, Vygon India Pvt Ltd, said “Classification of medical devices as Drugs burdens the process of investment with fiscal policy obstacles and regulatory hurdles. It impacts FDI, Technology transfer, Local Investment, Manufacturing, Operations, Innovation and Exports”.
“The Vision Document – 2025 highlights the need for a dedicated, separate and globally harmonised regulation for medical devices”, added Mr Himanshu Baid, Co-Chairman, CII Medical Equipment Division & Managing Director Poly Medicure Ltd.
Mr Rahul Guha, Partner and Director, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) India remarked that there was lack of investment, lack of regulation, less priority of the government and this was therefore a vicious circle. “The innovations and the licenses is something that unfortunately is not going in tandem with each other,” Mr Guha said.
According to the CII-BCG report, global medical technology market is expected to be $600 billion+ by 2025 and that India can capture 10% of that share if provided with adequate support and policy guidance.
To build up a roadmap for India to reach its full potential in medical technology, CII and BCG assembled a think tank of 40+ industry participants to brainstorm and determine the key levers required to be able to unlock the true potential of India. BCG held a set of workshops across Mumbai and Delhi to discuss and debate the right focus areas and develop a roadmap to unlock this potential.
Among the key recommendations proposed by the CII-BCG Report are –
- Need for a separate regulatory act for Medical Technology
- Need for manufacturing incentives (for example- tax support, low cost funding to spur investments)
- “Single–window” clearance to ease the regulatory burden for the industry
- Creation of ‘National Innovation Policy’ to reward results in innovation
- Need for world-class Manufacturing Infrastructure
- Set up Collaborative Partnerships
- Invest in Capability Development and Training by setting up Centers of Excellence for medical technology training
- Global task force to promote India as a manufacturing and R&D hub globally
- Create industry sponsored programs between local and global industry on joint collaboration projects
- Industry – Academia Collaboration. To facilitate Curriculum adaptation as well as cross-pollination of knowledge between students of Medical Technology and Business Management.
