Category — Innovation(RnD)

With 46 percent of its $16 billion in annual revenue hailing from foreign shores, Medtronic, the world’s biggest medical devices company has an ambitious goal to develop new and cost-effective products such as pacemakers for the poor, while simultaneously selling its existing ones to the growing middle classes in emerging markets.

The company’s new CEO, 55-year-old Syed Omar Ishrak was raised in South Asia (Bangladesh) and  believes that Medtronic can expand its reach even more, particularly in the emerging markets of India, China and Latin America. “Huge opportunities,” he says. “Huge.” How exactly Ishrak’s globalization strategy will play out remains to be seen according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune last year.

Syed Omar Ishrak, CEO Medtronic

At the Davos World Economic Forum last month, Ishrak, who was recruited from General Electric and has a PhD from King’s College in London,  continued the theme, “One has to be realistic about affordability in the under-served segment,” he said adding that the new generation of simpler devices should be five to 10 times cheaper than current high-specification products.

“To accelerate healthcare access one has to think about disruptive methods — disruptive technology and disruptive delivery mechanisms,” he said. While the work is still at an early stage, Ishrak has already identified heart pacemakers as the most likely area for initial research and development.

“I’d like to challenge all our businesses to start thinking this way but the area where we are furthest ahead is perhaps pacemakers, where we’re thinking of real disruption in terms of cost and simplicity,” he said.

What this means

At my company, Amritt, we have been advising our clients to look at emerging markets such as India, in exactly this manner not only in medical devices but in many other sectors that affect consumers. I had the good fortune to get to know the late legendary Professory C.K. Prahalad of the University  (the man who first became famous for coining the term “core competence”).  “CK” as he was know to all friends and acquaintances later wrote the ground-breaking “Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” where he pointed out dozens of examples of profitable business models that address wallet sizes different from the American middle class.

It is good to see that Medtronic has aspirations to address the needs of consumers  beyond the richest 1 billion global citizens. They are early in their journey, but doubtless the GE and Bangladesh heritage will carry Ishrak’s vision. We will watch this closely.

The Radiant Heat Warmer (RHW) 3000 series from Zeal Medical Pvt. Ltd. of Mumbai  provides an example of Indian ingenuity in cutting costs while preserving quality. Designed for the Indian marketplace, the open-bed radiant heat warmer for infants is 50% less expensive than other competing products in the market, according to the manufacturer.

Infant Warmer, Winner of 2011 Medical Design Excellence Awards

To obtain patent protection internationally it is necessary to file a patent application and and to prosecute the application to grant of a patent.

Many medical device companies are wary of the process, but with the help of an experienced patent agent/attorney, the process can be completed relatively smoothly. Here are a few of the key issues companies should consider when obtaining patent protection in the BRIC countries, according to attorney D’vorah Graeser, Graeser Associates International in Chicago as quoted in EMDT.

Budgeting for international patent costs can be challenging, given the differences between the patent systems. But India is an exception among the BRIC countries. Patent applications are filed and prosecuted in English. Furthermore, filing and prosecution costs in India are quite reasonable, lower than costs in Europe or the USA and lower than Brazil, Russia or China.

Apart from the requirement to pay regular (typically yearly) fees, some of the BRIC countries also have post-grant requirements that must be fulfilled to avoid cancellation of the granted patent. India, for example, requires filing of a yearly post-grant statement of working, describing the commercial exploitation in India of the invention disclosed in the patent. If commercial exploitation does not occur within three years of receiving the granted patent, a third party could request a compulsory licence of the patent. Selling the medical device in India, directly or through a licensee, may be sufficient to fulfill this requirement.

A six-pound satellite, designed and built by a team of 50 students at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur was placed into orbit on October 12th by the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle C18 (PSLV-C18) of the India’s Space Research Organization (ISRO). Named Jugnu (firefly), the satellite is just about four inches long.

Jugnu’s ejection system, which separates the satellite from the launch vehicle and places it in a precise orbit, will be the subject of a patent to be filed by IIT Kanpur via ISRO. Jugnu cast such a spell on students that some of them shunned tempting job offers just to stay with the project, recalls Project Leader and Mechanical Engineering Professor Nalinaksh S. Vyas.

Shashank Chintalagiri, a physics major, elaborating on his experiences as a project member, told NDTV ” We were initially torn between ISRO’s ‘right way’ of doing things and a more practical approach that we could fit in our small size and weight. “Eventually, we decided to go ahead and design our system, taking cues from other nanosatellites built around the world. …We were able to combine technology used in daily life . . . with the design principles of space technology,” Chintalagiri added.

The 3.5 watt orbiter will conduct remote sensing to map land use and cover, agriculture, soils, forestry, city planning, archaeological investigations and is expected to have a useful life of one year.

India will launch a dozen foreign satellites in the next couple of years, according to the chief of the country’s space agency quoted in Aviation Week.

US Ambassador Tim Roemer (left) meets ISRO head Dr. K Radhakrishnan

“We have  firm orders today for about 12 satellites, which are scheduled to be launched in the coming two years,” Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Chairman K. Radhakrishnan says. The satellites are mainly Canadian, German and Indonesian, including a 1,760-lb. spacecraft environment-monitoring satellite from DLF Germany.

What this means:

While India has launched 25 foreign satellites in the past, the increased pace of launches indicates the growing confidence in ISRO and its ability to compete on the world stage. Its subsidiary Antrix is already a signifcant supplier of remote sensing data to entitites worldwide.