NEW DELHI: Seven research centres across leading Indian institutions have been selected by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to develop priority medical devices and diagnostic technologies, with projects spanning portable screening for primary healthcare, biomaterials and technologies for eye and vascular diseases.The selected institutions are the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) at Kharagpur, Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur and Madras, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore.Among the selected projects, IIT Bombay’s centre, led by Dr Abhijit Majumder, will focus on portable screening, monitoring and point-of-care medical technologies for primary healthcare. Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham’s centre, led by Prof Gopal S Pillai, will work on developing, validating and translating healthcare technologies for ophthalmic and vascular diseases, while IISc Bengaluru will focus on biomaterials and translational medical devices.IIT Kharagpur’s PRAGATICAR, led by Prof Suman Chakraborty, will focus on frugal diagnostics, regenerative and personalised healthcare, artificial intelligence, digital health and advanced therapeutics. IIT Delhi’s CAR-PATH, led by Prof Vivekanandan Perumal, will work on priority applied technologies for healthcare.At IIT Kanpur, Prof Amitabha Bandyopadhyay will lead a multidisciplinary proposal to develop 10 priority healthcare products. IIT Madras will host TARaNGaM, a translational hub for next-generation medical technology, devices and diagnostics, led by Prof Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam.The initiative aims to accelerate the development of affordable, accessible and indigenous healthcare technologies addressing unmet clinical needs. To identify these needs, ICMR undertook an exercise involving clinicians from different healthcare settings, including tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 cities, and drew up a curated list of around 100 priority medical device and diagnostic technologies.Under the original call for proposals, applicants were required to propose the development of at least eight to 10 technologies from this list, covering a mix of low-risk and high-risk products. The scheme provides for funding of up to Rs 15 crore per centre over five years, with an emphasis on regulatory-compliant product development and eventual commercialisation.
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The call prioritised institutions with a track record in research, prototyping, technology transfer and commercialisation. It also required centres to leverage existing infrastructure, build a trained medical technology research workforce and continue functioning beyond the funding period, with host institutions expected to sustain them as permanent activities.The key challenge will be translating research into validated products that can address clinical needs and reach patients. The results list does not specify the individual devices to be developed by most of the selected centres, their development timelines or when the technologies could become available for clinical use.