BPL Healthcare, a 100% subsidiary of BPL, has signed a three-year contract with San Fransisco-based medical R&D company Dyansys, for the distribution of ANSiscope, a new portable device for monitoring the autonomic nervous system (ANS). ?BPL will invest in marketing the product, Dyansys will invest in manufacturing and the clinical evaluations will be a joint investment,? BPL Healthcare – chief operating officer Vijay Simha told FE.
ANS is a vital part of the body that handles life-sustaining activities such as heart, blood pressure and immune system control. ANSiscope would be the first product that can completely monitor the components responsible for sympathovagal balance.
The product was developed by Dyansys across US, Switzerland and India has its principal application in diabetic management.
?Considering the primary application of the ANSiscope in diabetic monitoring, we have decided to focus our concentration on India. This tool is also unique in its use for monitoring the physical pain being caused to a patient under anesthesia, for which we have so far depended on the anesthesiologist?s expertise only,? said Simha.
The tool can also be used to predict the possibility of a second heart attack after the first one, minimizing the need for expensive internal defibrillators.
To be launched in India in third quarter of current fiscal, ANSiscope was expected to cross sales of Rs 50 crore in the next 3 years.
BPL was also engaged in the process of introducing the concept of ?sub acute? post-surgery care centres monitored by paramedics, where a patient could be moved to after initial treatment in hospitals.
?We are trying to tie up with two potential partners, one from the US and one from Germany within a couple of months,? Simha said, adding that BPL was working on a business model that would address the market either in an institutional form, or in the form of home care.
Currently, India has 1.5 hospital beds per thousand patients, compared to four beds per thousand in China and eight beds per thousand in the US.