It all started with a chemical reaction and hence it’s very obvious that it can only be controlled with a series of chemical reactions. And, so came the pharma industry more than 200 years ago.

That’s history, today the pharma industry, especially in India is very modern in its approach and is shouldering the health sector with its innovative approach and modern innovations. But growing back to the future, India is also taking lead to promote its age-old Ayurveda that is as effective as any other modern science.Opening the floor to this high voltage discussion, Dr. Shiban Ganju Atrimed Pharmaceuticals in the US said, “Until now human body has been an amalgamation of cells, tissues and organs. Now, the human body has emerged as a conglomeration of biochemical process that are scattered around and work in close coordination with each other with the sole purpose of keeping the human body alive.

“Another baffling reality for me is that Ayurveda introduces us to the benefits of plants and their properties. After all, trees and plants appeared much before the pharma industry. Plants have been in existence for more than two billion years and our pharma industry is less than 200 years old. Not only that, plants have a self-preserving system and can fight any bacterial attack or any foreign infection; that makes them the most natural source for our pharma industry – even in these modern times. More so in the modern times!” he concluded his thoughts with his faith in age-old Ayurveda.

Closer to the ground, Dr. V.K. Sharma shared some startling facts about the Indian pharma sector: “We are the most economical medicine manufacturer in the world. India is the third largest producer in volume and 10th largest in business globally. Thirty percent of US requirements are catered by Indian pharma manufacturers. We export to almost 200 countries in the world. One out of every three pills consumed in the world is from India. And all this has been achieved in the last 30 years when the Indian government came out with its Pharma policy in 1986.”

“Despite that India pharma industry has been facing many challenges and to address those issues now there’s a new Drug & Pharma policy that will encourage more research and development in the country making the pharma industry more robust and bigger than ever.”

Dr. Vinod Nikhra highlighted the contribution of Indian pharma industry beyond the “pill factor” as he emphasized the broad developments in the sector and what makes it click internationally.

“India has been on the forefront of providing some of the leading medical facilities that are uniquely innovative and ingenious. Indian pharma industry has gone beyond molecular contributions and is in fact manufacturing some ground breaking gadgets and machines that contribute to curing people from extreme ailments like heart and lung diseases, transplants and coronary diseases,” he said.

On the flip side, he added, “Of course pricing is an issue that is faced by the industry and the irony is that despite the price being much cheaper than the international market, it still remains out of reach of most Indians. For this we are counting on government to extend some encouraging and bold steps to make medical facilities and good health within the reach of all.”

Highlighting the problems of the Indian Pharma industry, Ashish Kumar from Medicea Technology Solutions said that, “The problem that we are trying to solve is two-fold. First one is facing the encroachment of fake and counterfeit drugs which is growing at 25% CAGR per year and is valued at $10 billion annually. We are working closely with IBM to address this problem and are on the brink of perfecting a fool-proof system that will block every fake or counterfeit drug in the country.”

“Second project that we are working on is to track and design demographics of drug consumption. Use of a particular drug in a zone or a larger region can give a very useful insight to health authorities as to what is the cause of those ailments that are leading to high consumption of particular drugs in that particular area.”

Dr. Anjana Batni, an Ayurveda researcher from Atrimed Biotech brought glory to Indian past highlighting the relevance and importance of age-old Ayurveda that is getting increasingly accepted universally and is completing the modern medicine and not competing with it.

Highlighting the contributions of her organization, she said, “With the intention to modernize Ayurveda, we are collating data about the plants and their use. Ayurveda texts identify how to diagnose, manage and how to cure diseases; and they also have vast information on plant molecules and so far, less than 10 percent of these plant molecules identified in Ayurveda texts are in practice. Our efforts are to classify all the plant molecules and store them digitally for use by Ayurveda practitioners and other medical platforms. As of now we have a library of 2.8 lakh plant molecules identified and digitally stored at our facility.”

“We are soon embarking on clinical trials of our discoveries and we hope that our efforts can bridge the gap between modern pharma and Ayurveda with our discoveries,” concluded Dr Batni to a welcome applause from the audience.

Want to write for InnoHEALTH? send us your article at  magazine@innovatiocuris.com

Read all the issues of InnoHEALTH magazine:
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 1 (July to September 2016) – https://goo.gl/iWAwN2 
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 2 (October to December 2016) – https://goo.gl/4GGMJz 
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 1 (January to March 2017) – https://goo.gl/DEyKnw 
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 2 (April to June 2017) – https://goo.gl/Nv3eev
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 3 (July to September 2017) – https://goo.gl/MCVjd6
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 4 (October to December 2017) – http://amzn.to/2B2UMLw
InnoHEALTH Volume 3 Issue 1 (January to March 2018) – https://goo.gl/fksdQx

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Hospitals in India play a vital role in healthcare with most of the high-end medical facilities available only at the hospitals. But these large institutes are very far away from the masses as more than 70 percent of the Indian population lives in rural areas. That leads to a reality that medical facilities must go beyond hospitals, with an innovative approach, to serve the masses and make India a healthy place.

Addressing the issue as keynote speaker, Professor Krishnan from IIM, shed light on the management aspect of innovations and spelled out the needs of the industry for the sake of ensuring that all innovations become a reality and benefit the masses.

In his words, he said, “Innovations in healthcare must consider three aspects: Begin with identifying core functionalities of equipment without having to sacrifice on the safety aspect. Secondly, start from scratch. Build upwards and incorporate all the technical features that you feel are essential to the product; downscaling features will not necessarily downscale your cost; lastly, collaborate and team up with others who will complement your product, effort and intentions. There’s no one entity that has all the knowledge and resources to develop any product in its entirety. So build up on sound partnerships using complementary technology and process.”

In support of the view, Dr. S. Venkataramanaiah highlighted data usage as one of the most effective tools to implement an innovative approach for spreading good health. He said, “Data clearly indicates that there’s a huge demand for private players in the health sector. Everyone is and needs to be medically insured and ensured of good health by private or a government body. On the other hand, healthcare has some major deficiencies like availability of medical help at anytime and anywhere. Like you have roadside assistance available all over the country, such a facility for health and medical urgencies is still not available.

“So innovative approach in production, processing, delivering service or business management is the answer to finding solutions to new challenges faced in the health sector,” he said

In a more myopic approach to the topic of distance solutions Dr. Mukesh Taneja shared some startling data from the WHO.

“According to World Health Organization’s 2010 data 285 million people are visually impaired; 90 percent of these are in the developing world; and 80 percent of these are preventable,” he said.

And speaking of India, 70 percent of the population lives in rural areas, however 90 percent of the medical facilities are located in urban areas. So, there’s a huge gap between the care providers and the population who they should be reaching. And we believe that telemedicine – a very innovative approach — is the answer to bridge this gap. Eye problems can more effectively be pictured and online imaging of affected eye can easily be examined and diagnosed by a distant located ophthalmologist.
“We, at LV Prasad Eye Institute, extensively use this telemedicine platform and are reaching out to the rural population with the help of health workers and specially trained technicians who operate our remotely located Vision Centers.”

The next panelist, Dr. Santanu Biswas, from the UAE shared his international perspective and said, “If you are to work on remote distance technology, you cannot work in isolation. You choose partners in technology, data procurement and delivery system. This means your dependence on your partners is even more critical as you depend on their credibility, technical compatibility and similar intentions. This is the reason that even though we have been talking about digital health and e-health; but other than the fact that it’s been a buzzword for the last 15 years, it has not become a well-charted module. We are still talking about the concept and exploring innovations that will truly support the telemedicine or e-health platform. This is because we are trying to marry and merge a conventional health system with an imposed telemedicine process.”

Concluding his views on the subject he summed it up saying, “I think we need to rediscover a totally new innovative approach to telemedicine, which will use innovative technology, innovative approach and an all-new processing and delivery system. And this will evolve, as this is the future.”

Dr. Tarun Ramole, speaking in the role of an investor and entrepreneur spoke candidly about the business aspect of telemedicine. In his opinion, Telemedicine, as a business is a very lucrative platform. The gap between the resources and the users remains very high and in a country like India is not going to be easy to fill that.

“Telemedicine will be a very reliable option to bridge the gap and that makes it a very viable business option. But, like most businesses, telemedicine also has challenges that are very unique. Starting with, most start-ups end up replicating what is already there in the market “with improvisations”. What we need is new solutions and not improved solutions. You must think innovatively to innovate things,” he concluded his opinion with a very upfront approach on the subject.

Want to write for InnoHEALTH? send us your article at  magazine@innovatiocuris.com

Read all the issues of InnoHEALTH magazine:
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 1 (July to September 2016) – https://goo.gl/iWAwN2 
InnoHEALTH Volume 1 Issue 2 (October to December 2016) – https://goo.gl/4GGMJz 
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 1 (January to March 2017) – https://goo.gl/DEyKnw 
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 2 (April to June 2017) – https://goo.gl/Nv3eev
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 3 (July to September 2017) – https://goo.gl/MCVjd6
InnoHEALTH Volume 2 Issue 4 (October to December 2017) – http://amzn.to/2B2UMLw
InnoHEALTH Volume 3 Issue 1 (January to March 2018) – https://goo.gl/fksdQx

Connect with InnovatioCuris on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/innovatiocuris
Twitter: https://twitter.com/innovatiocuris
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/7043791
Stay updated about IC, visit: www.innovatiocuris.com