C-CAMP COVID-19 Innovations Deployment Accelerator or C-CIDA has announced its Week #1 innovation stars,  that have solutions with high potential for  impact, to combat COVID-19.

C-CIDA, a COVID-19 focused accelerator that was launched by C-CAMP on 26th March, now joined by phenomenally valuable partners like United Nations Health Innovation Exchange (UNHIE), Social Alpha, India2022 Xynteo, MedTechConnect, India Health Fund, AIC-CCMB and CCMB has selected the first 5 innovations with more soon to come, from a pool of over 460 submitted ideas received over the last one week.

The five are CoSara Diagnostics Pvt Ltd, and Ampligene Diagnostics Pvt Ltd for rapid diagnostics, Coeo Labs and Avyantra for assisted respiratory devices and Anabio Technologies Pvt Ltd for preventatives.

C-CIDA will now connect these five companies with Industry Partners as well as Government agencies for scaling and deployment.

Depending on the specific needs of each individual company, in play are pilot testing, fast-track regulatory clearance, CSR funding support, investments and industry scale-up geared towards quick deployment.

The five  companies are addressing key areas  in checking the COVID-19 pandemic. These areas include:

1) Enhanced testing capabilities through low-cost, easy-to-use, rapid and accurate diagnostics technologies with minimised chances for false positives. This is of paramount importance for ramping up mass-testing as underlined by COVID-19 trajectory in South Korea.

2) Preventative technologies that are a step above current sanitizing techniques and with higher staying power. Protective gear like N95 masks, sanitised hospital linen, PPE grade outerwear are in tremendously low-supply the world over. This is an affordable technology that can quickly turn a mask and also any normal cotton cloth into an effective virus-blocker, could be a positive gamechanger.

3) Increased options for assisted ventilation through both invasive and non-invasive respirators for critically ill COVID patients. Intubated support, reports suggest, may not be necessary in all cases with respiratory distress. CPAP or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure machines have the capacity and have been approved by US FDA, to be used in case of non-availability of ventilators. This strategy could be significant in current times.

If and when community transmission sets in in India, reports say that in a worst case scenario we may have 2.2 million cases with an estimated 5-10% of total patients requiring ICU and critical care in form of ventilator support. Having a maximum of ~57k ventilators at our disposal, Indian healthcare system will need an urgent supply of ventilators and even more importantly proper triaging to identify patients who need the support most. With low-cost CPAP machines at hand, clinicians will be better equipped to allot resources optimally saving more lives.  

In an added bonus, most of the five technologies in the line-up have been completely indigenously developed which not only make them star candidates for Make-In-India but also more tuned in to India-specific needs.

C-CIDA is aimed at accelerating COVID-19 innovations that are near deployment ready. Initiated by C-CAMP, C-CIDA has now been joined by multiple partners :- UNHIE, Social Alpha, XYNTEO India2022, MedTechConnect, India Health Fund, AIC CCMB and CCMB. With no upper limit on the number of innovations it will push and no deadline for applications, C-CIDA is fast emerging as the ideal platform for startups with near deployment-ready innovations to join in the COVID-19 fightback.

As C-CIDA rolls into its second week, there are many more innovations waiting in the pipeline. Announcements of more such innovations from C-CIDA are therefore expected in the coming weeks.