Category — Healthcare

Skanray Technologies, a medical equipment manufacturing Company based in Mysore,  acquired Larsen & Tourbo’s healthcare business earlier this year. Skanray was founded by a team of 40  medical technologists and engineers and manufactures high-frequency X-ray machines and other medical devices. TThe company has a manufacturing facility at Mysore, India but is also setting up assembly plants in Brazil and West Asia. Skanray is wholly-owned by promoters and angel investors, which includes Arun Kumar, a Bangalore-based entrepreneur.

While Skanray has largely been an exporter, the company now plans to take advantage of L&T’s distribution presence across India to widen its reach. A joint venture agreement with a global partner for ultrasound machines is also planned.

St Jude Medical Inc (a global medical device company based in the US) will make its latest technologies available to patients in India. It will launch Quadripolar technology which will help treat patient with heart failure.

According to Kaustav Banerjee, country manager of St Jude, India is a focus market and the company is dedicated to improving the care of patients throughout the country. The firm, which has its India headquarters in Hyderabad, is focusing on educating physicians and patients about the symptoms and potential treatment options for cardiac problems such as arrhythmia, heart failure, sudden cardiac arrest, and heart valve repair and replacements.

According to the Economic Times, Milind Shah, the India head of Medtronic, now offers its  cardiac implants to patients in easy monthly installments. The firm, which started experimenting with the EMI (equal monthly installment) model in 2010 among the poor miners of Durgapur, is now offering the plan through 60 hospitals across 18 cities where patients can buy 10 of its flagship products such as stents, pacemakers and defibrillators.

Medtronic’s direct-to-heart model finds an able parallel in the Tata Capital-backed startup Mya Health Credit that offers personal loans for planned surgeries, in what could be a new wave in Indian healthcare to make super-specialty treatment affordable. Just a month old, Mya disburses loans between $1,400 and $8,300 at an interest rate close to 10 percent with a 12-month term

Established hospital chains such as Metro are pitching in with their own schemes, alongside companies like Medtronic that are bringing to healthcare the world of EMIs, a domain that was so commonly deemed with appliances, vehicles and homes.

Shah of Medtronic says that a patient must have at least one earning member in the family who is ready to take a psychometric test prepared by the company, that would measure his sincerity and willingness to pay back on time in order to qualify for EMI. The test also assesses if a patient really needs the EMI assistance.

What this means

Without a vibrant third party payment system, India’s medical market demands creative solutions. Companies that lead the way will find more profits and a willing, grateful clientele.

According to Visiongain (a London-based business information provider), the medical devices market in India is expected to be worth $11 billion by 2023. India is one of the most lucrative markets for medical devices globally. Indeed, the Indian medical devices market generated $3 billion in sales in 2011. The opportunities lie in the emerging regions of the country.

Seeing that the market relies largely on imports, the country provides significant opportunities for multinational medical device manufacturers. The domestic manufacturers are mostly engaged in low-value products like syringes, needles, catheters, blood collection tubes, medical electronics, medical equipment and implants.

Moreover, the Indian medical devices market will benefit from the expansion of health insurance, which currently is the fastest growing non-life insurance segment in the country and from patient demographics, particularly with the rise in the country’s aging population.

However, according to the  report, the lack of strict regulation of several medical devices in the country will be a challenge in the future as the devices reaching the market become more complex and the end-users demand quality for the price.

According to DNA India, Indian stent manufacturers are flourishing in overseas market, especially in regions where regulatory clearances are relatively easy to get (such as South East Asia, Middle East, Latin America, or Eastern Europe).

According to Gautam Tripathy, national head of Meril Life Sciences, its stents have a big potential abroad, the company is even looking for annual growth of over 40% from the International markets. Regarding Meril, the Indian multi-national company makes around 60,000 stents annually, of which over 25,000 are exported to South Africa and SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) countries. Gautam Agarwal, director at Innvolution Med System, says that the acceptance abroad for Indian stents is growing tremendously even though domestic markets comprise 80%  of their revenue.

Moreover, it also helps the stent exporters that hospitals abroad make upfront payment compared with a 4-8 month lag in India.