India, the third-largest pharmaceutical market in Asia, is increasingly gaining the much-needed Government focus on expanding affordable health care. This year, India took a giant leap towards providing accessible and affordable healthcare to the common man with the launch of Ayushman Bharat in September, 2018.

In parallel, the Government remains committed to establishing India as a global manufacturing hub for medical devices with this sector expected to increase significantly.

A lot happened this year, and BioSpectrum took this opportunity to interact with a few industry players on their reviews on 2018-

This year, the focus on patient centricity was catalyzed with Government’s announcement of the Ayushman Bharat. While the government is working towards upgrading quality standards in the country, industry representatives, industry associations and patient groups need to play their role in delivering quality medicines. Quality is a continuous journey, not a destination. We must keep working at it in a sustained fashion.

A Vaidheesh, President, OPPI

Through this year India has witnessed a few major challenges. First, there was a rapid rise in the so-called dual disease burden as the share of non-communicable diseases, better known as ‘lifestyle’ diseases, is increasing along with a continuing rise in communicable diseases. With the growing middle-class and working-age population, incidence of lifestyle diseases like diabetes and cardiac ailments also increased. Second, the lacuna in capital infrastructure in the Indian healthcare sector widened.

Dr Debraj Shome, Consultant Facial Plastic Surgeon & Director, The Esthetic Clinics

Accessible healthcare is the main aim of HCG and we have always believed that it is important to provide timely treatment for better outcome and quality of life. This year, Triesta Sciences, our diagnostics division was merged with Strands Life Sciences, where HCG is a major shareholder dealing with molecular diagnostics and bio-informatics.

Dr. BS Ajaikumar, CEO and Chairman, HealthCare Global Enterprises

This year was an interesting year for Medical Devices Industry. In India, Medical Devices is now considered a very important cog in the delivery of quality health care to the masses. The launch of MDR 2017 was a very important first step in creating a robust platform. The awareness around the need to have a robust Medical Devices ecosystem in the country is more than ever before. The industry has seen growth rates much higher than global industry growth rate. 

 Vishnu Bhat, Co-founder, Blue Neem Medical Devices

The year started off with Transasia being recognized as ‘The India Medical Devices Company of the Year’, a befitting honour by the Govt. of India. This year, we further expanded our reach by opening our global sales and marketing headquarter along with a Technical Training Centre in London and our own operations in Brazil, Ireland, Vietnam and whole of Eastern Europe.

Suresh Vazirani, CMD, Transasia Bio-Medicals

2018 has been a year of positive change for us. We have further strengthened our core businesses across all the segments: Aesthetics, Urology, ENT, Ophthalmology. We have also strengthened our foundation for clinical training programs for Urologists - HTC (Holmium training Classes) and, Clinical training programs for Aestheticians - GuruKool (Clinical learning platform).

Bijal Shah, Country Manager, India & South Asia, Lumenis

The Life Sciences sector has seen very significant events this year, with the universal health coverage scheme being announced and the approvals received for bio-similars from the regulated markets.

Utkarsh Palnitkar, Founder & Managing Partner, Aarna Corporate Advisors

2018 has been a very positive year overall. On the application and technology front, Immuno-oncology is gaining good interest and this year Noble prize in the similar field has further highlighted the importance of the same. BD Biosciences has continued its endeavor of knowledge sharing with new courses at BD-JH FACSAcademy and through several focused workshops across India.

Murli Sundrani, Business Director, BD Life Sciences – Biosciences

By strengthening the core of our business, which includes leveraging our partnerships, our momentum in Asia to drive core growth and our Sigma-Aldrich.com e-commerce platform, customers in nearly every country can easily find and access the exact products needed to advance their research.

Yves Dubaquie, Ph.D., Head, Global Business Development, Merck

In March this year, we received $2.2 million in seed funding from marquee investors such as Ranjan Pai, Currae Health and GrowX Ventures. Later in August, we had the opportunity to present real world evidence from our clinical trials at the 78th Scientific Session of the American Diabetes Association in Orlando, USA. Most recently, we announced one of our biggest partnerships with Roche Diagnostics to power the Accu-Chek Active line of glucometers sold across the South and West of India.

Abhishek Shah, CEO & Co-Founder, Wellthy Therapeutics

2018 has been a year of process enhancement. We have been upgrading our secure Laboratory Information Management System, especially the report generation system and a module for genetic counselors. We have also made forays into incorporating new technologies such as blockchain, with strategic partnerships. 

Anu Acharya, CEO, Mapmygenome

In 2018, on business side we concluded the Series C funding and have been successful in closing partnership deals with hospitals and diagnostic labs across the country. In addition, we have expanded our presence in Mumbai by taking over Centre for Genetic Health Care and launched three genomic centres in Chennai, Coimbatore and Kolkata respectively.

Dr. VL Ramprasad, COO, MedGenome

This year we have successfully raised another $6 million led by our lead investor with commitments into the ensuing round. We will use the funds for our lead molecule development which will be submitted for IND filing next year. On the business front, our Syngene relationship has fortified into a global one.

Dr Sunit Maity, Director, Product Development, Zumutor Biologics

PeeSafe has introduced a variety of personal hygiene products both for women and men. We have also expanded our offline distribution channel from few hundred stores to 2500+ stores in India.

Vikas Bagaria, Founder, Pee Safe

2018 has been a very challenging year as markets are undergoing a sea change and we try to keep pace with our growth plans.  As someone said, change is the only thing which is constant; we adapt to changing market needs and pursue our goal of making our customers successful.  

Anil Kumar, President, Waters India

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