The Indian arm of the $17-billion healthcare equipment major GE Healthcare is looking at developing close to 20 indigenous products in the next three years with an investment of close to $100 million. This is part of its global campaign aimed at developing over 100 low-cost healthcare equipment innovations by 2015.
V Raja, president and chief executive officer, GE Healthcare, India, told FE, ?In the next three years, you should be able to see at least 15 to 20 products, focused primarily on the needs of India, coming out of India. Based on an average estimation of the amount of investment needed to do that many products, the investments would be easily upwards of $100 million. However, that is not a concrete amount. Each one of these products will meet the criteria that we have laid down and have costs aligned to the capability of this market,? said. The company said it is working on developing equipment in the areas of maternal infant products, cardiac diseases, ventilators, and CT scans in order to address the needs of such products in the country.
?We are focusing on diseases which are preponderant in the country and we work on innovations to address those. For example, we are looking at ventilators, because no body really makes ventilators here. We are also working on CT which can help in penetrating mass market, at price points which will allow you to have a CT in probably every nook and corner of the country, considering the high demand for it here,? said Raja.
The company spends roughly $60 to $70 million on R&D in India to develop products for India and for markets across the globe as well. On an average, these costs go up at about 10 to 15% every year. The products developed here are exported to markets across the globe, including Europe, US, China, Middle East, Africa.
The campaign, called Healthymagination, which had earmarked an investment of $3 billion for the development of these 100 innovations, aimed to lower costs by at least 15%. As part of this initiative, GE Healthcare India had rolled out innovations such as the Mac 400 and MAC i ECG systems, mobile devices that aimed to make early detection of cardiac diseases simpler. It had also worked on the Lullaby Baby Warmer, an innovation for new borns that reduced costs up to 70% compared to a similar imported product. It also announced an investment of about $15 million for PET for India.