Global biopharmaceutical major AstraZeneca and IT industry body Nasscom Thursday joined hands to set up an accelerator programme to support Indian start-ups in healthcare.
At the India-Sweden Unnati Healthcare 2.0 day event here, AstraZeneca and its partners, Business Sweden, Nasscom, Atal Innovation Mission-Niti Aayog and AGNIi also announced the finalists of the Unnati Healthcare Innovation Challenge.
The selected winners among the finalists will receive mentorship support from AstraZeneca, which will contribute its unique healthcare domain expertise with the aim of helping the finalists bring their solutions to market.
AstraZeneca has launched a strategic partnership with the Nasscom IoT Centre of Excellence to set up an accelerator programme to support Indian start-ups develop new innovative solutions to non-communicable diseases (NCDs) care in India.
Under this collaboration, AstraZeneca and Nasscom will incubate start-ups in bringing innovative and frugal solutions that can help in the management of NCDs.
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AstraZeneca PLC Chairman of the Board Leif Johansson told PTI: "Best healthcare that can be provided and developed comes from cooperation across borders between industry, government and academia in a such way that we, with the help of technology, can provide a higher-quality service at a lower cost."
AstraZeneca is committed to strengthening innovation in healthcare in India, he added.
In a statement, Johansson said: "We are pleased to collaborate with the government, start-up eco-system and industry partners to achieve the shared vision of making meaningful interventions in improving the lives of patients impacted by non-communicable diseases in India."
Highlighting the Unnati initiative, Sweden's Trade Commissioner to India Carsten Grnblad said: "Unnati is a model for co-innovation allowing industry, start-ups and the civil society to jointly develop solutions addressing global social needs."
This challenge calls for collaboration to implement early and remote screening as well as efficient AI-based patient management, he added.
When asked about the importance of India as a market for AstraZeneca, Johansson said: "India is important to us as a market... My vision would be that India becomes an important, large part of the AstraZeneca group not only for India but also in India for global market.
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