GE Healthcare & IIT Madras announce R&D collaboration to accelerate innovation for a healthier India

GE Healthcare and Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC), a multi-disciplinary R&D center of IIT Madras recently announced a three-year collaborative research and development agreement for innovating a range of disruptive and affordable healthcare solutions.

Commenting on the partnership, Terri Bresenham, President & CEO, GE Healthcare, South Asia, said, “Accelerating innovation for affordable healthcare requires an ecosystem of partners and collaborative efforts by all stakeholders. This collaboration between HTIC and GE Healthcare will bring together start-up dynamism and corporate scalability to healthcare innovations while putting the unserved customer at the centre of healthcare innovation”.

Dr. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre, IIT-Madras said, “ We are pleased to join hands with GE Healthcare, a healthcare technology leader with tremendous knowledge on disruptive innovations. Together, we look forward to develop a pool of affordable and accessible technologies & solutions that create large impact in healthcare in India, and the world.”

This initiative will address the unmet and unvoiced needs in the areas of mother and child health, cardiology and cancer.  GE will provide a grant of Rs. 75 Lakhs to HTIC towards research and development of these disruptive solutions that can benefit all emerging markets. The collaboration will encourage “open innovation” and leverage co-creation of solutions with the involvement of multiple stakeholders such as academia, start-ups, governments, NGOs and clinicians to achieve these goals.

“IIT Madras is proud that HTIC is partnering with GE Healthcare to address the challenges of unmet healthcare needs in India and other similar emerging economies. We need to take a completely new approach to screening, diagnosis and treatment in order to make healthcare affordable and universally accessible”, said Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras.

“Last year, during a very brief visit to the Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC) at the IIT Madras research park, I was impressed with the work and caliber of the organization.  I am extremely delighted with this partnership and am excited about the potential impact of the joint work in the Healthcare segment.” said, Gopichand Katragadda, Managing Director, John F Welch Technology Center.

This partnership will combine HTIC’s Med Tech innovation ecosystem and GE Healthcare’s deep expertise in bringing disruptive innovations to address healthcare’s biggest challenges

EH News Bureau – Bangalore