80% of healthcare systems to increase investment in digital tools
The Indian Healthcare sector is expected to grow to reach a size of US$50 billion by 2025, and 80% of healthcare systems are aiming to increase their investment in digital healthcare tools in coming five years.
Minister of State Science & Technology Dr Jitendra Singh gave this assessment at the 14th CII Global MedTech Summit, “Seizing the Global Opportunity”, on 7 Sept 2022.
“Healthcare has become more focused on innovation and technology over the past two years and 80% of healthcare systems are aiming to increase their investment in digital healthcare tools in coming five years,” he told delegates at the summit.
“Telemedicine is also expected to reach US$5.5 billion by 2025.”
Further, eSanjeevani, a Ministry of Health & Family Welfare conceived technical intervention, has enabled virtual doctor consultations and connected thousands of people living in remote parts of the country with doctors in major cities while sitting in the comfort of their own homes, the Minister elaborated.
The prime objective of the government is to reduce import dependence from 80% to below 30% in next 10 years and ensure self-reliance quotient of 80% in Med-Tech through Make in India with SMART milestones, said Dr Jitendra Singh.
The Indian Government has undertaken structural and sustained reforms to strengthen the healthcare sector and has also announced conducive policies for encouraging FDI, he pointed out.
This has led to a change in trend, with the country becoming a hotbed of MedTech innovation. Instead of adopting western products, Indian innovators are developing path breaking MedTech products and solutions.
“India has reached an inflection point, which is leading to rapid expansion of HealthTech and MedTech ecosystem,” he said.
Dr Jitendra Singh emphasised that India has all the essential ingredients for the exponential growth in this sector, including a large population, a robust pharma and medical supply chain, 750 million plus smartphone users, 3rd largest start-up pool globally with easy access to VC funding and innovative tech entrepreneurs looking to solve global healthcare problems.
The Minister also noted that the pandemic has provided an additional impetus by changing the scenario of doing business in this sector.
“The pandemic has opened massive opportunities for the healthcare sector especially in niche areas like tele-consultation, AI-based diagnostics and remote healthcare management.”
India aims to achieve 10-12% of the global market share of the medical devices sector to arrive at a US$100-US$300 billion industry. The country will have about 50 clusters for faster clinical testing of medical devices to boost product development and innovation.
He further added that what is going to drive this sector forward are life expectancy, shift in disease burden, changes in preferences, growing middle class, increase in health insurance, medical support, infrastructure development and policy support and incentives.
Dr Jitendra Singh underlined that it is indeed time to work towards establishing a global footprint by becoming the manufacturing hub and key exporter of medical devices worldwide, as this is an important objective of the Make in India Campaign, in which Indian medical devices sector has been identified as a sunrise segment.
“This recognition has given the industry the much-needed impetus to deepen its prowess in the value chain across device-segments ranging from low-tech segment to more sophisticated categories of devices,” he underlined. fiinews.com
