14 healthcare start-ups win innovation challenge by India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre

Winners announced during the Sweden-India Nobel Memorial week, at the inaugural ceremony of the ‘Health Talks’ – the Annual Conference of The India-Sweden Innovation Centre

India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre virtually announced the winners of the Innovation challenge, which aimed to identify and support innovative solutions that can impact the treatment of non-communicable and communicable diseases and help regress critical problems in the healthcare delivery landscape of India. These winning solutions were announced through a web conference by Hon’ble Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India, today. Representatives from the 14 winning start-ups were also present at the inaugural event to exchange their vision that could improve the healthcare ecosystem in the country.

The innovation challenge included a rigorous evaluation process by a panel of experts from AIIMS Delhi, AIIMS Jodhpur, ICMR, The Swedish Trade Commissioners office to India, AstraZeneca, AIM, C-CAMP and other partners. This committee had shortlisted 14 compelling solutions including that of Dr. Aakash Kohli, Aarogya AI innovations, Adiuvo Diagnostics, Dr. Amit Goyal, Dr. Bharat Choudhary,  Biofi Medical Healthcare India, Blackfrog Technologies, Dozee (Turtle Shell Technologies), Dr. Gautam Ram Choudhary, Janitri Innovations, Jeevtronics, Qritive, Qure.ai Technologies, and ThermaiScan Technology AB.

The India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre is a collaboration between the Swedish Trade Commissioner’s Office, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMS Delhi) and All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Jodhpur (AIIMS Jodhpur). It is designed to enable and implement the shared vision of developing innovative solutions aiming to solve various healthcare problems that exist in the country. As a part of the initiative, the start-ups as well as the partner organisations will work towards the shared vision of propelling and integrating innovative healthcare solutions into the ecosystem to bring about progress in the way healthcare is delivered or managed currently.

Anders Tofte, Swedish Trade Commissioner to India said, “Through this initiative, we aim to enable cross country collaboration between innovators for effective exchange of knowledge and best practices between both the countries. Through the India Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre, start-ups will be able to co-create, explore solutions from multiple angles and be able to scale-up across borders”.

The winning start-ups will now work with the India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre platform which will enable faster scale-up, by providing them access to cross-country mentorship, guidance on funding, and ability to ideate with like-minded innovator, access to state-of-the-art incubation centre located within AIIMS Jodhpur campus, their lab facilities and beyond. On boarded start-ups can also avail the incubation facility at NASSCOM, Bengaluru. The challenge focused on innovative solutions in eight challenge areas including Digital Tools/Platforms – Med-Tech, Tele-Medicine, and Artificial Intelligence backed solutions to support new ways of working to improve the efficiencies of healthcare systems as they manage the pandemic.

Speaking on the occasion of the announcement of the Innovation challenge winners, Dr. Randeep Gulleria, Director, AIIMS Delhi said, “Local innovation combined with global experience is very important to develop effective and scalable innovations in healthcare. We are confident that the holistic approach of India-Sweden Healthcare innovation centre will enable an impactful engagement with the winners announced today”.

Dr. Sanjeev Misra, Director, AIIMS Jodhpur said, “The new normal we have experienced over the past months have shown that innovative thinking is more needed than before, and this innovation challenge has come at an opportune time. Jointly with Sweden we aim to provide high quality mentorship towards ideation, development and state of the art incubation and testing facilities to the 14 start-ups identified from the Innovation Challenge. We are also very excited about the Centre of Excellence that we will develop in Oncology through this innovation partnership”.

Leif Johansson, non-executive Chairman, AstraZeneca PLC said, “There is a requirement to establish an incubation of providers with diverse expertise who can bring relevant, meaningful innovative solutions that can foster holistic management of non-communicable diseases. We are pleased to announce the winners today and will continue to support companies that contribute to the healthcare ecosystem. With its vast array of innovation centres across the globe and experience of working with innovators in India, AstraZececa as knowledge partner to this collaboration will bring experience and expertise that start-ups can leverage for faster scale-up.”

Speaking at the 7th India Sweden Innovation Day 2020 themed “The New Normal” held earlier, Johansson had said he was very encouraged by the dynamic response to COVID-19 by Indian and Swedish innovators. “Whether it is vaccine development, novel point of care diagnostics, or new digitally-enabled interventions in chronic diseases such as diabetes, heart failure or cancer, it is clear that Indo-Swedish science-driven partnerships deliver progress and hope as we face this pandemic.”