Start-ups pool to Vizag via AMTZ

New Delhi: The Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone (AMTZ) hosted a first of its kind innovator’s pitch event in the domain of health technologies in an august gathering of panelists primarily from the manufacturing community.

Since under the Atal Innovation Mission programme of NITI Aayog has recently shortlisted AMTZ as an AIC incubation centre, the event was an outreach effort to enable incubates for the AIC, registered as AIC – AMTZ Medi Valley Incubation Council, also called as Medi Valley.

A total of sixteen teams participated from eight different states at the event held at PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, New Delhi on 20th August 2018 from 10am to 5pm.

The panelist from the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry included Mr Subhash Punja, Managing Director, Robonik, Dr G D Agarwal, CMD, Surgiwear and Member and Ashish Dange, CEO, Ophtechnics. Among other panelists, Mr Vishal Gandhi from BioRx provided the much needed financial and go to market knowhow while Ms Biraj Swain, Fellow-ICFJ Washington DC and Contributing Editor-News Laundry, suggested the societal and outreach perspectives. Such innovation pitch judged from a manufacturer’s point of view is unprecedented in the national start-up scenario.

A selected number of incubatees were shortlisted for initial incubation. The remaining were also selected for pipeline of prototype development for a longer timeline in view. Medi Valley would be the only medical technology focussed incubation facility housed within a medical device manufacturing ecosystem. The event also called for more interaction among medical device manufacturers and innovators so focussed product development can happen from a much earlier stage.

As a part of the event, Dr Jitendar Sharma delivered an address on the role such manufacturing focussed incubation centre would play in the changing MedTech landscape of the country and how every single innovator could be supported in the process to promote indigenous manufacturing in this sector. Mr Vivek Seigell, Principal Director, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry delivered his speech on the role the chamber has played in promoting indigenous innovation and how MedTech as a sector would be offered all support from the organization.

To hallmark the occasion, a Memorandum of Understanding signing and exchange also took place between Biotechnology Consortium India Limited, represented by the Managing Director, Dr Purnima Sharma and Dr Jitendar Sharma, Executive Director, Kalam Institute of Health Technology. Both the DBT institutes came into understanding of supporting each other in MedTech and biotech and any convergent technologies along with Dr Suchita Markan, Assistant General Manager, BCIL and Mr Kingshuk Poddar, Assistant Director, KIHT also officiated the signing.