Medical device players throng at Medtec India 2013

UBM hosted a two-day conference Medtec India on October 3-4, 2013 at the Lalit Residency, Mumbai. The conference served as a platform for knowledge exchange between relevant stakeholders on subjects related to trends, regulations and innovative solutions to facilitate growing demand for medical devices from the Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities of the country. Some of the topics covered during the conference were: ‘Government support to boost the industry’, ‘Regulatory Regime: Current status’, ‘Trend Analysis: Medical devices as industry in India’ and more. Over 300 professionals from the medical device manufacturing industry attended the sessions at Medtec India 2013.

Inaugurating the conference, Ajay Pitre, MD, Sushrut-Adler Group, spoke about the progress of the medical device sector in India. He highlighted that the concept of ‘Universal access to health in India’ is the key driver for growth of the sector. During his session, Pitre spoke of the opportunities and challenges faced by the medical device sector in India. He also pointed out that we cannot replicate global strategies in India as the market here is different. Krishnakumar Sankarranarayanan, Associate Director, PwC during his session said that the industry will need to re-invent strategies to expand their businesses within the tier-II and III cities of the country.

Biten Kathrani, Director- Aisa Pacific Innovation Center, Johnson& Johnson Medical India, on the other hand spoke about the right kind of innovation needed for India. Highlighting the current reforms undertaken, Dr S Eswara Reddy, Deputy Drugs Controller, (I), CDSCO, Ministry of Health informed, “In the 12th Five Year Plan for 2012-2017, there is a proposal to pass financing of Rs 3000 crore, to strengthen the overall Indian drug regulatory system. Of the Rs 3000 crores, Rs 1800 crores will be used to strengthen the central government regulatory body –CDSCO and Rs 1200 crores for the state government regulatory authorities. This includes human resources of close to 300 medical device officers and also tremendous financing for other infrastructure like manufacturing units, training centres, clinical trial set-ups, regulations for indigenous manufacturers, etc.”

Apart from the conference, Medtec India featured a range of networking and social engagement opportunities like facilitated business networking, i-3 centre, speed networking, speed geeking etc which opened avenues for future knowledge exchange between major industry players in India.

All this was accompanied by a small medical device exhibition wherein Indian and international companies like BioInteractions, Ametek Instruments India, Millenia Technologies, Martech Medical, Zeus, SMC Global and some more showcased their unique products.