'India to lead in frugal medical innovation'

LONDON (PTI) -- India is poised to emerge as the leader in the field of innovative medical device due to its lower cost of manufacturing, a professor from India's premiere medical institute AIIMS told an audience at the University of Cambridge here.

Delivering a lecture at the Cambridge Judge Business School, titled 'Challenges and opportunities for health care innovation in India', Prof Balram Bhargava predicted India is to lead in a decade of frugal and affordable innovation that will impact on global economies.

Prof Bhargava, who is the executive director of the Stanford ? India Biodesign programme, is a noted cardiologist and an expert in biomedical innovation, public health, medical education and research.

He said: "There is a thinning medical pipeline in the west. Most of the manufacturing is moving to countries like India and China. The cost of production has gone up tremendously in the west and what is going to happen in the next decade or so is that countries like India, China and Israel will combine forces and work together".

"Innovation centres are developing in these countries and they will probably develop devices that will ultimately be accepted by the west, be partnered by the west and therefore western companies will move to Indian soil to manufacture."

Bhargava's lecture centred on medical device innovation and highlighted interdisciplinary collaboration between doctors, engineers, designers and entrepreneurs, a release from the Cambridge Judge Business School said.

(c) 2012 Asia Pulse Pte Ltd.