Category — Biotechnology

An engineer from my undergraduate school IIT Kanpur who also went to the University of Florida has invented  a lantern-cum-stove that lights up a small room while cooking food, an intriguing application of “frugal innovation” for the 600 million rural Indians, many of whom don’t have access to reliable electric power.

The creator, Anil Rajvanshi, who heads the Nimbkar Agricultural Research Institute (Nari) in Phaltan, Satara, India says that the Lanstove runs on kerosene and produces illumination equivalent to that of a 300-watt lightbulb. The flame is lit with the flip of a valve-swittch  and the unit  includes a pressure cooker based on the heat pipe principle. Without smoke (that plagues village huts using firewood) or the smell of kerosene (in cruder devices) ,the  Lanstove provides light and cooks a complete meal for a family of five in about 2 hours. The cooker can be used for cooking rice, lentils and vegetables, which are typical staples in an Indian rural diet.

India’s DNA newspaper reports that the Lanstove runs for six hours on a liter of kerosene. “Our tests confirmed that the carbon dioxide level generated while using Lanstove is very low as compared to that produced by chulhas (traditional wood-fired  stoves).” Village resident Sunita Mohite told the paper,  “While I cooked on Lanstove, children complete their homework. Otherwise they never touched the books after 6 pm.” Rajvanshi’s organization has applied for funds from India’s ministry of science and technology for manufacturing 100 units of Lanstove. “If manufactured on a commercial scale, the device could cost under Rs3,000 ($60) and villagers could pay in installments,” he said.

Major multinationals such as Shell, BP and Philips have also attempted to address these needs in India and elsewhere but no breakthrough device has yet emerged.

Takeaway: There is a huge need for innovation specific to the needs of the Indian population. While commercial success take a lot more than an invention or a working prototype, it is heartening to see engineering talent being applied to the bottom of the pyramid.  Your engineers may already have a core technology or approach that is not relevant in the West but solves a major need in India; or they could readily develop something for the India market.

Cardiac Science of Bothell, Washington  has agreed to be acquired for $2.30 per share by a medical equipment company based in Bangalore, India. The all-cash deal represents a 10 percent premium to Monday’s closing price of Cardiac Science shares, the companies said Tuesday.

Opto Circuits (India) Limited of Bangalore, which will pay $54.6 million for Cardiac Science, is a developer and marketer of healthcare equipment including pulse oximeters, patient monitoring systems, sensors, digital thermometers, anesthesia and respiratory care equipment, and stents. It reported revenues of $243 million in the latest fiscal year, and sells primarily in the US, Europe and South East Asia. Opto Circuits will fund the purchase through cash on hand and lines of credit.

Opto Circuits Chairman and Managing Director Vinod Ramnani said the deal helps his company venture into the noninvasive diagnostic monitoring and “high-growth” automated external-defibrillation markets.  “This transaction is expected to open many new global markets for Cardiac Science’s products and will greatly enhance Opto Circuits’ product offering and presence in the United States,” Ramnani asserted.

While companies from India are getting ambitious about M&A in the West, they continue to be value-seekers as we see in this deal to buy a distressed medical device company. Earlier this year, the company agreed to replace 24,000 AEDs for U.S. medical facilities and emergency services under a revised recall plan the company has negotiated with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.  So don’t expect a wave of such buyouts in the next quarter.

India is one of the  fastest growing pharmaceutical  markets in the world generating almost $8 billion per year. That amount is more than expected to double by 2015 with annual growth from 15 to 20 percent.

Following the acquisition of India’s pharma leader Ranbaxy Labs by a Japanese company, the India Expert was not surprised when Illinois-based Abbott Laboratories moved to acquire Piramal Healthcare’s generic drug unit, a comprehensive manufacturing and distribution asset that services  antibiotics, respiratory, cardiovascular, pain and neuroscience segments. This investment makes Abbot the No. 1 producer with annual sales garnering a seven percent market share that is predicted to pass $2.5 billion by the year 2020.

Abbott is no stranger to investing in emerging markets, evident by its recent addition of Established Products Division, created as a stand alone entity where focus is placed upon emerging global markets with its leading cache of branded generic products which perform particularly well in markets such as India. Branded generics account for 25 percent of worldwide pharmaceutical sales. Pirarmal  sales for the fiscal year ending in March 2010 exceeded $500 million.

Furthermore, Abbott’s investment combines its own 100-year presence in India with Pirarmal’s personnel creating the largest pharmaceutical sales force in the country with representatives dedicated toward servicing India’s massive rural areas that constitute 70 percent of the nation’s population.

According to a press release by Abbott ‘s chairman and chief executive officer, Miles D. White, “This strategic action will advance Abbott into the leading market position in India, one of the world’s most attractive and rapidly growing market. Our strong position in branded generics and growing presence in emerging markets is part of our ongoing diversified pharmaceutical strategy, complementing our market-leading proprietary pharmaceutical offerings and pipeline in developed markets.”

The sale represents a total $2.2 billion investment in the India pharmaceutical market.  Readers should watch out for additional M&A moves involving Indian targets or acquirers.

India’s Department of Biotechnology has allocated more than (3 billion rupees) over the last five years towards basic and applied research in stem-cell technology and is focused on diseases that affect millions of Indians rather than exotic diseases

The entire government-directed effort is in understanding the fundamentals of how stem cells work and conducting clinical trials to gauge the effectiveness of the therapy. The leading organization doing the fundamental work is the National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) in Bangalore. “We are developing model systems–for example, planaria or hydra–to understand how stem cells work,” says S. Ramaswamy, dean of InStem at NCBS, quoted in Forbes magazine’s India edition.

Also active are the federal All India Institute of Medical Sciences,  L.V. Prasad Eye Institute, Centre for Stem Cell Research at Chrisitan Medical College Vellore near Chennai, Tamil Nadu  and the National Centre for Cell Sciences (NCCS) at Pune University. They are trying to focus on regeneration of damaged muscles stroke or cornea damage. Given the prevalence of heart attacks, blindness and strokes, this seems a sensible strategy. The task of these institutes is to locate promising sources of stem cells, apply stem-cell therapy to cure patients and verify if the procedure is stable enough for wider application.

This is exactly the area where private effort, too, has come to the fore. Dr. Satish Patki, along with Dr. Ramesh Bhonde of NCCS, has shown that the membrane lining of the female genital tract (endometrium) is a rich source of stem cells. Dr. Patki is now trying to see whether these stem cells can be used to generate blood flow to the fetus. “Without this therapy the blood pressure of the mother can rise to extremely abnormal levels, and a doctor may have to abort the pregnancy to save the mother,” he says. So far, he has only been able to use the tried and trusted bone marrow stem cells to do this.