The premier Institution of the country for medical devices completed its first year on 17th July 2018. Conceived as a research facilitation institution by the former Principal Scientific Advisor (PSA) to the Government of India, KIHT was born one year ago with a mandate from the Department of Bio-Technology to act the nodal institution of the country for facilitating focused research on critical components pertaining to medical devices with support from various stakeholder institutions.

In its one year of childhood, KIHT has strided with giant leaps and was notified by the office of the PSA in June 2018 as the Project Analysis Unit for all Health Technology Projects in the country. This was preceded by a meeting convened by the PSA on April 30, 2018 at the KIHT campus with a host of country’s leading R&D institutions working on medical technology for taking stock of the status of projects which received government funding in the health technology domain. KIHT, inter-alia, has achieved the following in its one year of babyhood:

• First ever E-Auction for Medical Technologies launched on 15th February 2018, by Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers, GOI.
• 22 technologies identified for technology transfer of Intellectual Property and prototypes, bringing strategic and coherent synergy of scientific facilities and research institutions with industrial promotion
• Signed MoU with 12 Institutions for technology collaboration and bringing vibrancy into the medical devices fraternity.

carried out first of its kind disease burden and trade deficit amalgamated model to create the National Priority List which formed the backbone for the National BioPharma Mission. This was the first of its kind need and trade-based grant release for R & D in any sector of science.

• Created a knowledge repository for trade information, analyzing emerging trends in trade and investments, towards policy enabling inputs to the government.
• Launched a pioneer initiative named NIPUN certificate, Non-regulatory Innovation Potential Utility and Novelty certificate to act as a single point window for all non-regulatory requirements of the medical technology sector and provide a simplified approach to the process of the commercialization of a product.
• Promulgated Health Technology as one of the core component of market access which adds value to the product credibility by giving them comparative overview of clinical and economic effectiveness of the innovation with its systematic, transparent and evidence-based decision-making process.
• Joined the Presidential delegation from India to Cuba in June 2018 as a key stakeholder in promoting bilateral bio-technology collaboration
• Tripartite MoU between KIHT, BIRAC and ‘BioCubaFarma’ signed to facilitate several stakeholders, including industry, R&D Institutes and Technology Transfer offices and pave the way for technological & industrial progress in Health technology sector.
• Collaborated with The Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), and Institute of the University of Adelaide as JBI Affiliated group member for applying international standard and methodology to conduct systematic reviews & meta-analysis.
• Declared as the regional hub for conducting Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
• Organized TWO International Fellowship programs on HTA
• Collaborating with Tata Institute of Social Science (TISS), Mumbai for taking fellowship program to next level by converting it to Executive program on Health Technology Policy, assessment and outcomes research.
• As part of its constant endeavour to cater to the needs of the medical devices industry, KIHT came out with unique type of dossiers to disseminate information specific to devices in healthcare which are complex in technology and import dependent. These dossiers capture key features of a product like design, technology, market share, etc. and facilitates users like start-ups, researchers, academicians, manufacturers and other stakeholders in taking decisions on R&D, investment, potential market, innovations etc.
• Conducting periodic training sessions and workshops on Medical Devices and their functionality with hands on session by experts on the actual device itself. Such level of close proximity to actual operating medical devices and in-depth learning has been unprecedented.

Principal Scientific Advisor visit to review on Medical Technology projects on 30th April 2018.