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.
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