With the aim to develop innovative and affordable medical devices as per unmet clinical needs of India and to train the next generation of medical technology innovators in India for bringing such impactful devices to the real world, the department of biotechnology has implemented Biodesign programme.

This Program is implemented by Department of Biotechnology jointly at AIIMS and IIT Delhi in collaboration with International partners. The Department has authorized Biotech Consortium India Limited for management of its Intellectual Property and other techno-legal activities.

Under this programme, XIth Annual MedTech Summit was recently organised in New Delhi. 

While inaugurating the summit, Dr. Harsh Vardhan, Minister of Science & Technology, Earth Sciences and Environment, Forests & Climate Change emphasized upon the need and relevance of need based, socially relevant inventions for public good. He appreciated the efforts made by the stakeholders for developing innovative medical devices under this program.

Prof. K. VijayRaghavan, Secretary, DBT and other dignitaries also shared their views regarding developments in Science &Technology and policy frameworks for promoting Medtech innovations in India. 

Prof. R.Guleria, Director, AIIMS, emphasized on creating and embracing appropriate technologies and making affordable health care facilities, and more importantly, making them available and accessible to women in rural areas. 

Prof. Marie Lall, Pro-vice, Provost, South Asia, University College of London, UK, spoke on forging international collaborations in health education and engineering. 

During the event, Dr. Harsh Vardhan formally launched Noxeno- a nasal foreign body removal device developed by start-up InnAccel Technologies Private Limited, Bangalore, created by the Fellow trained under the Biodesign program. Noxeno is the first dedicated tool for anterior nasal foreign body (NFB) removal that allows doctors in any setting to quickly and safely remove objects that people (mostly children aged 2-10) put into their noses. 

Noxeno has been 100% invented, designed, engineered and manufactured in India. Noxeno has an ergonomic handle along with a built-in light source and a hinge. This allows the user to slip behind the NFB and remove it in a matter of seconds by simply squeezing the trigger and pulling the device. The modular nature of the system allows for sterilization of the hinge through autoclaving it.

This reusable device has a target price of around INR 5000, making it both easy to use and cost-effective. The start-up hopes to deploy this device across primary health care centers, community health care centers, clinics and smaller hospitals nationwide by 2020.