Get the research & technology here to work on affordability and you also get a good export line
GE Healthcare, the global medical technology major, had a clear business plan when it launched the MACi, a low-cost version of its ultra portable electrocardiogram (ECG) machine in India last year.
The company had asked its Bangalore-based engineering team to develop MACi — whose ‘i’ stands for India — to make ECG machines affordable and accessible to hundreds of small healthcare establishments spread across the country’s small towns and villages.
The result was an ultralight ECG machine operating on a battery in hot, dusty conditions, while costing less than a quarter of the price of imported ECG systems of similar quality.
However, exceeding GE’s expectations, MACi proved to be a brand that grew beyond India. Six months after it was introduced in the country, GE says 80 per cent of MACi revenues are coming from exports, indicating the global demand for a product tailormade to suit Indian conditions. The markets, as one would normally guess, are not just other developing countries, as the sales are happening in Germany, Italy and the US, too, says Ashish Shah, GE’s healthcare technology leader in India.
GE’s India research is on full throttle. The company’s 65,000 sq ft R &D facility in Bangalore is said to be one of the largest such centres for GE today. One of every four employees in its healthcare business in India is a research engineer. The company is planning to develop at least six ‘MACi-like’ products in the near future.
The medical device maker is part of a business segment that industry chamber Assocham and YES Bank expect to touch $6.7 billion (Rs 31,400 crore) by 2012. Rajiv Nath, coordinator of the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AIMED), said the industry is currently valued at $3.1 billion (Rs 15,000 crore), with exports increasingly contributing to its growth.
Synergy appeal
GE is not alone. The global appeal of affordability and accessibility has led other global medical technology majors also – Philips, Siemens for instance – to have more engagements with India.
Philips Healthcare, which launched a series of patient monitoring systems two weeks earlier, says the company has a range of products to serve both ends of the value chain. “Our wireless patient monitors are best suited for small and medium size hospitals. We have exclusive pricing models for emerging markets like India”, said Jitesh Mathur, GM, Patient Care & Clinical Information and Ultrasound, Philips.
While most Philips products are still imported, it had begun to source components from low cost destinations such as China to make the end-product affordable. Goldwing Series Patient Monitors, which has the lowest price tag amongst Philips products, is one such example, Mathur said.
According to AIMED’s Nath, in addition to electronic medical devices, most medical consumables, disposables and equipment in the medical segment are produced by foreign multinationals. “We will encourage domestic production, even if they are carried out by multinational firms”, Nath, who runs Hindustan Syringes and Medical Devices Ltd, said.
Siemens Healthcare, part of Bombay Stock Exchange-listed Siemens Ltd, has a major R&D centre in Bangalore and owns a production facility in Goa.
A Siemens’ spokesperson said the company manufactures a wide range of X-ray related products in its Goan facility. These products are also exported to 36 countries, largely in South America, Europe and China, but excluding the US, she said. Siemens Ltd is in the process of merging its another BSE listed company, Siemens Healthcare Diagnostics Ltd, with itself.
Riding on the India advantage, Chennai-based Trivitron Healthcare has announced a series of joint ventures with foreign medical technology firms to set up manufacturing units in its Medical Technology Park. Japan’s Aloka, Spanish firm Biosystems, Johnson Medical of Sweden and Italian firm ET Medical Devices are some foreign firms that have already announced tie-ups with Trivitron.
“Our objective is to manufacture an indigenous line of products designed for Indian markets. The park will have 10 joint ventures that will manufacture affordable products ranging from ultrasound systems to molecular diagnostic products,” said G S K Velu, managing director of Trivitron.
Going by GE experience, Velu’s dream products could find global markets in the near future.
