KIHT receives financial support from DBT, GoI

KIHT has Dr R Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor, GoI as its President; Secretary, DBT as Chairperson and Dr Jitendar Sharma as Executive Director

The Kalam Institute of Health Technology (KIHT), an institute dedicated to medical technology born out of MedTech Zone (AMTZ) and the support of Government of India, has received official approval for 100 per cent financial support from the Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Government of India (GoI).

The initiative taken up by AMTZ is led by Dr Jitendra Sharma and Chandrababu Naidu, CM, AP and is supported by Secy DBT and Principal Scientific Advisor to PM and funded by GoI.

Located within AMTZ campus, KIHT shall support DBT in areas of medical technology. KIHT has Dr R Chidambaram, Principal Scientific Advisor, GoI as its President; Secretary, DBT as Chairperson and Dr Jitendar Sharma as Executive Director. It is a first-of-its-kind Institute with Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) on its governing board.

KIHT will formally take up the road map which is being created by UDAIMED, a forum created to bring users, developers, academia, industry and interface it with all Govt Scientific Development Dept. for being a Make in India enabler.

Named after India’s 11th President Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, KIHT has been set up with the aim to identify critical gaps in medical technology and suggest the government to do focussed spending on such areas. It also aims to help bridge the gap between academic research and industrial market access, by auctioning of patents and prototypes available with government funded academic research institutions.

KIHT shall broadly function on Innovation & Market Access, Enabling Technology Transfer, and Research & Development Support.

Placed within AMTZ, KIHT is amidst direct access to academia and industry. KIHT approval comes under the aegis of the launch of the National Biopharma Mission – an Industry-Academia Collaborative for accelerating discovery research to early development for biopharmaceuticals. The National Biopharma programme includes an investment of $125 million from the Government of India and an equal contribution as a loan from World Bank and is anticipated to be a game changer for the Indian biopharma and medical devices industry.