Curing India's import-driven $5 bn medtech industry with niche devices

The Indian medical devices market has traditionally been import-driven, despite the availability of inexpensive labour and local manufacturing advantages.

When Vishnu Bhat was working at IT major Infosys in the 1990s and listening to the likes of N R Narayana Murthy talk about building the future of the nation and what every individual could mean for it, Bhat came to the conclusion that if he had to make a contribution, it had to be in the sunrise medical devices sector.

It was an underinvested, under-focussed and under-leveraged industry which never witnessed a boom like its sister, the pharmaceuticals industry.

Hence, Blue Neem came into being in 2009 with the idea of curing the import-laden medical devices industry through local manufacturing like neem which has healing properties and is native to India. It was founded by Bhat, who incubated the cloud and big data businesses at Infosys, and Pankaj Hans, Rajendra, Satish B, and Vittal Rao, all experts in the medical devices manufacturing space with over 20 years of experience.

“If you have import dependence, there is nothing much you can do on managing cost of health care, you can only pump in taxpayers’ money in the form of subsidy,” said Bhat, founder of Blue Neem. The huge mark-up cost at the distribution level make imported products cost 10 times more than locally manufactured ones.

Meet Abhishek Prasad, the man who played guitar during his brain surgery

A 37-year-old musician played guitar while a nerve disorder in his brain was stimulated at a private hospital in the city recently, said a neurosurgeon on Thursday.

"We conducted a live brain circuit surgery on Abhishek Prasad to stimulate his left hand fingers even as he strummed his guitar in the operation theatre on July 11," Bhagawan Mahaveer Jain Hospital neurosurgeon Sharan Srinivasan told reporters here.

Post-operation, a beaming Prasad, who hails from Bihar, but settled in this tech hub, displayed proficiency by playing guitar at ease nine days after his skull was drilled and operated upon to set right the disorder in his four fingers.

Touted to be the first such brain circuit surgery in the country, the delicate operation involved passing an electrode 8-9cm through a 14mm hole into the brain and stimulating a specific nerve to confirm the right location and prevent any side-effect or complications to other circuits.

"After reconfirming the target location, a radio frequency lesion was made using a RF ablation machine. As the surgery was on, Prasad was conscious and played guitar, as the disorder used to manifest when he tried to play the instrument. The live feedback was important for us to ascertain the exact location to be lesioned," noted Srinivasan.
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