In September last year, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said that the Indian medical devices industry has the potential to grow at 28% p.a. to reach $50 billion by 2030. According to reports, India’s import of medical devices is staggering at almost 80%, and the country is highly dependent on foreign suppliers, particularly for high-end equipment such as cancer diagnostics, medical imaging, ultrasonic scans, and polymerase chain reaction technologies.
According to the government’s estimates, around 65% of the manufacturers in India are mostly domestic players operating in the consumables segment and catering to local consumption with limited exports.
According to experts, the sector is highly capital intensive with a long gestation period and requires continuous induction of new technologies and training of healthcare professionals to adapt to new technologies for rapid innovation.
With a presence in more than 135 countries, Getinge, a medtech company, provides products and solutions for intensive care, cardiovascular procedures, research, operating rooms, sterile reprocessing and life sciences.
Financial Express.com reached out to Mattias Perjos, President and Global CEO, Getinge and he talked about the challenges and scope of medtech companies in India, Getinge’s key plans for India, and market expectations among others. Excerpts:
What are Getinge’s key plans for India’s medtech industry? What are your market expectations?
India is today one of our top-10 markets in terms of net sales and with the growing population in India, we see the need for healthcare infrastructure on the rise and plan to bring value offerings. Apart from offering our products and solutions to the Indian market, we have established an Innovation Center in Bangalore. The objective with this center is to understand the market and bring value offering to the country. We expect to utilize this center not only for the Indian market, but also globally in the long run.
One such example is the ongoing manufacturing of our modular walls – IN2 in India, for India as well as the globe and in near future will plan to expand on the portfolio. We are working very closely with IIT Bombay in developing an innovative critical care management system with state-of-the-art tools like AI, using Getinge’s time tested robust and safe communication platform. Overall, we have high ambitions and expectations for the market.
How Getinge is contributing towards the medical infrastructure across the country?
Currently, we are working with 10,000 hospitals in tier I and tier II cities all over India to create world class infrastructure. We are among the leaders in many product categories in India. We have 90% market share for Endoscopic Vessel Harvesting (EVH), 85% for Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) and 30% for Advanced Ventilators in India. We are particularly proud of having responded quickly to complete record installations of Ventilators/ECMO machines in the brutal second wave of COVID-19 Pandemic. Our service engineers have been on the forefront and completed ~10,000 service calls in ICUs and Operating rooms installing and maintaining our ventilators and ECMO Machines. We were also selected as one of the suppliers for an important project related to INS Vikrant, which we were able to execute in a very efficient way. We look forward to being part of similar projects in the future.
According to you, what are the challenges for India’s medtech industry? How they should tackled?
India has shown a lot of frugal innovation in this field, but to emerge as global supplier destination in MedTech, there is a need to further focus on developing industrial footprint on active electronics and sustainability. Equally important is to increase its focus and understanding of developing state of the art testing and verification ecosystem apart from clinical validation infrastructure. We are aware that many institutions in India are currently adding these facilities and can further increase participation of global industry players in this endeavor. Getinge is looking forward to be part of this development.
What are your key business plans for the India markets? Are you planning to diversify into other segments of healthcare?
India is an important key market for us to work with and support and as such we will continue to launch innovative products here. Right now, we are increasing our focus on integrated MedTech through our Digital health portfolio given the need we see in the market. Many countries globally are suffering heavy backlogs accumulated during Covid. Digitalization plays a significant role in evolving healthcare. Connected healthcare enables better and equal care with increased efficiency.
Hospitals, in India as globally, are looking at improving efficiency and connectivity between departments, data and information, greater accountability of the workflow and crisp analytics with use of Artificial intelligence. Getinge’s digital solutions and products on the market significantly expands capabilities in key areas, including predicting surgery times, managing waiting lists and data security. By digitalizing best practices, providing real time intelligence and reducing administration, develop solutions that support better patient care as well as better working conditions for hospital staff.
We are also working to bring service online to help enhance uptime and efficient use of hospital resources. By ensuring interoperability of our products and services, as well as working with customers in early development faces, we place focus on the objective how innovative and digital medical technology is a mean to ensure a more efficient and secure healthcare, with ultimately lowered costs in total/better productivity.
India shares a major burden with respect to cardiovascular diseases and it is also a key focal area for Getinge. Any news plans with respect to India’s cardiac care market?
This is a major discussion in terms of health issues. We will be on forefront in making products available in India, along with key global market like EU and US, and to continue discussions with Indian counterparts on how to best support needs. With years of development and research, Getinge is one of the leaders in high end products related to cardiovascular diseases. Our products and solutions for Endoscopic Vessel Harvesting (EVH), Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) and Advanced ventilators have 90%, 85% and 30% market share respectively. We will also continue our educational activities to support adoption and full implementation of the products in India.
Anything else that you would like to add?
We are committed to support the Indian healthcare infrastructure development and to continue the exchange of knowledge with Indian counterparts and stakeholders. Hence we have initiated our Innovation and Global Sourcing hub out of India. With our deep domain knowledge and access to Indian technology ecosystem we believe that these initiatives will give us mutually beneficial results. We are involved with Pratham, an organization supporting skill development in the eastern parts of India. This is an important part we play in the local community and the strengthening of educational support. Our partnership with Pratham goes back 5 years and is funded through our global sustainability.
