Those present at the workshop were awe struck on such absorbing and motivating narrations that kindled hopes and vindicated the time proven fact that nothing was inaccessible by a fertile and intelligent mind of any diligent individual. The import of a day-long meet was that everyone should ignite imaginations encased within their minds rather than sitting tightly over those.

A One-Day Workshop on “Technological Innovations for Healthcare Start-ups & 3rd Anniversary celebration of InnovatioCuris (IC)” was jointly organized by SRI-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) & InnovatioCuris on 4th August 2018 at SRI Auditorium, New Delhi. Participants included key members from healthcare start-ups, medical professionals, industrialists, entrepreneurs, medical device manufacturers, plastic industry, officials from govt. institutions and students from various universities.

The event was inaugurated by addressing the distinguished delegates and budding entrepreneurs about the advancement and new innovations in the healthcare sectors. It was a delightful moment to see the positive response from industry stalwarts of the region and Science and Technology start-ups’ keen interest in venturing into new business entities.

Also Read: 5th IC Club Meeting: Fairytales of Nanoparticles from Iceland to Jamia Millia Islamia

Dr. K. M. Chacko, Director, Shriram Institute in his address briefed about the Technology Business Incubation concept. He highlighted the excellent support provided by the Department of Science & Technology (DST) at the Indian Ministry of Science & Technology because of which the Shriram Institute – Technology Business Incubator (SRI-TBI) has been running for past so many years. The center provides services in the fields of healthcare, plastics, rubbers, specialty chemicals, and waste management. Continuing the inaugural session, the address of the Surgeon Rear Admiral & MD, InnovatioCuris Prof. (Dr.) V.K. Singh helped in setting the tone for the workshop. He briefed the national & international status of healthcare sector during his delightful thought.

Chief Guest of the event, Mr. Vijay Kumar, briefed about the support available to the start-ups at the Ministry. He appreciated the efforts made by SRI-TBI team and opined that the multidisciplinary activities of SRI would be useful for promotion of incubator programme. He briefed about the various funding schemes offered by the Ministry to micro, small & medium enterprises which both the existing and the future entrepreneurs can take advantage of. The floor was taken by Dr. Shirshendu Mukherjee who added his appreciation for the joint efforts made by team InnovatioCuris & SRI-TBI. He briefed about the industry-academia interface and implementation of its benefits through a wide range of impact initiatives, be it providing access to risk capital through targeted funding, technology transfer, IP management and handholding schemes that help bring innovation excellence to the biotech firms and make them globally competitive. He added that the supporters of change for building the Indian bio-economy would be biotech start-ups & SMEs & hence our focus is on raising their capabilities.

The inaugural session followed with the launch of a start-up innovative product Nylon Sleeve Anchor Fastener. The product was developed by Mr. Rajendra Gupta, Director, Axel India with the support of SRI-TBI & are in scaling up the process for the healthcare sector. The Inaugural session ended with the vote of thanks by Dr. Ajay Tyagi who mentioned that the efficiency, benefits, barriers, and challenges for healthcare industry are very process-centric and technology use can be mainly attributed to the success of entrepreneurs. This was followed by two technical panel discussions.

The first technical session was on Innovations for Reducing the Burden of NCDs. The panelists stated that the Non-Communicable Diseases (NCDs) are reaching epidemic proportions worldwide and present an unprecedented challenge to economic and social development globally. The latest projections from the World Health Organization (WHO) suggest, 57 million deaths occurred globally of which 36 million (63%) were the result of NCDs. Despite the immense burden of disease, NCDs, defined here as cardiovascular diseases, cancers, chronic respiratory conditions, and diabetes. It is estimated that 80% of NCDs are preventable with appropriate diet and lifestyle choices and good control of NCDs can have a substantial effect on the incidence of downstream complications. Hence there exists a need for innovations to reduce the burden of NCDs. The panelists also suggested the steps for reducing the burden of NCDs in the present scenario.

The second technical session was on What will take Indian Healthcare sector forward. The panelists discussed various aspects about the current scenario of healthcare sector and suggested several notable points including obtaining proposals from private insurance companies and the government on ways to provide medical insurance coverage to the population at large and execute the strategy; it is healthy to have competition in health care and provide health insurance to the millions who cannot afford it; revise the curriculum in medical, nursing, pharmacy and other schools that train healthcare professionals, so that they too are trained in the new paradigm; the government should appoint a commission which makes recommendations for the healthcare system and monitors its performance; encourage business schools to develop executive training programmes in healthcare, this will effectively reduce the talent gap for leadership in this area; rapidly develop and implement national accreditation of hospitals – those that do not comply would not get paid by insurance companies. However, a performance incentive plan that targets specific treatment parameters would be a useful adjunct.

The programme concluded with a visit to SRI-TBI Prototype Development Facility. The participants were highly excited to see the actual processing of plastics injection molding and blow molding processes and expressed their earnest desire to be incubated in the facility.

It was a crisp winter morning when a motely crowd of innovators assembled quietly in a conference hall of the national capital’s prestigious India International Center to learn craft of presenting their case before government bodies, philanthropists and other agencies for funding.

With a promise to give an encouraging platform to innovators and aspiring Startups, InnovatioCuris had organised the second IC Innovator Club meeting on November 26, 2017.

A medium height simpleton emerged on the scene and occupied center stage of the Sunday morning show, but patient listeners within split of seconds shed off doubts whether spending a precious Sunday morning in such a meet was rewarding or a mere waste.

The club meeting brought some big names of healthcare including PHFI, INMAS (DRDO), Amity University, IIHMR to name a few, under a single roof including experts from investing agencies, Startups, policy makers, academia and many more.

The members quickly envisioned pots of money for their dream projects mainly strategized to fulfill unmet needs of common people and the industry.

Glued to a widescreen where slides were scrolled for thumb rules while applying to such bodies for funding, innovators lent ears to Mission Director who at an ease rolled out drill for a successful applicant.

Batting with a straight blade, he minced no words to articulate the harsh reality that there was no scope to dodge funders to siphon money from them on bogus facts and figures. No cutting of corners; no double play with different funders; no concealment of facts; no new sets of facts and figures for same projects with different bodies; and no lobbying were among many during his opening remarks.

Dr. Shirshendu Mukherjee, Mission Director of Program Management Unit, jointly supported by the Department of Bio Technology, Bio Technology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) –BMGF(BILL & MELINDA GATES) Foundation and Wellcome Trust unveiled points which play crucial role in attracting funds from various bodies.

In life of a researcher or innovator one important pillar for the success of his idea is getting the right funding. Innovation is not only about ideas.It’s about making the ideas happen and sometimes difficult to convert a good idea on to a paper.

The agenda of IC Innovator Club’s second meeting was to share the views and knowledge on how to write a research or a grant proposal so that the innovator is successful in bringing his innovation to real world by implementing ideas.

Dr. Mukherjee insisted that art of communication is trick of the trade as in the world of tearing hurry ambience and cut-throat competition no one has time to flip through bulky dossiers.

According to Dr Mukherjee, “Winning a grant is how compelling story (of your idea) you tell”. He said writing a grant application is like narrating a story with once upon a time to a happily lived ever after. By this what he meant was, it is important to narrate the beginning, ending and all the important milestones to the funding agency very clearly and in chronological order with a proper flow of events to take place for the innovation to happen.

Dr. Mukherjee beautifully divided the prospective challenges of innovation broadly under three stages: Discovery, Development and Delivery. Major challenges under the discovery stage being to understand the problem, limited market pull and push in non-commercial indications and lack of local research infrastructure. Under the development stage, he told the major challenge faced by an innovator could be the translation of the idea to the product. Adding to it, lack of local development infrastructure, complex IP and regulatory pathway also contribute to the challenges faced during the development stage of an innovation.

Dr Mukherjee also told “One should keep in mind the unmet need of the market and the funding space available for area of interest”. About the dedicated experts and advisors being appointed in the funding agencies, he advised participants to seek advice on the funding space relevance of their proposal through these experts.

According to the expert, few of the challenges that one can expect during his project/work could be regulatory, IP or IT related, business plan development challenges, challenges in developing business exit plan etc.

Dr. Mukherjee encouraged the participants by saying “A successful proposal is 60% science and rest 40% is the foresightedness” that is how accurately down the line one can see and plan.

Sharing about Program Related investments, Dr. Mukherjee made a bold statement which could make an enormous impact in the applicant’s life. He said, “The applicant should also do due diligence on the funder, it is not only the right of a funder to do due diligence on the applicant, but also the applicant should do due diligence on the funder”. He also discussed few points on how one can perform the above said task, like visiting their respective websites, noticing what they have funded in last two years and others.

Best approach for applying a grant is ‘Two funder approach’. Approach is also a crucial factor in determining the progress of the application says Dr. Mukherjee. Benefit of doubt always rests in court of applicant, meaning if one of the reviewers is in favor the application and rest are not then also the applicant would get a chance to defend his application at first.

Further discussing about the ideas and points to be taken care of while drafting the proposal application, views were discussed on how one can write a comprehensive application with a suitable title and an impactful abstract.

Budgeting is very important in every aspect of life and so is the case while writing a grant application. The budget should be exhaustive and self-explanatory says Dr. Mukherjee. One should be realistic in quoting the budget and should avoid any kind of hidden costs or inflation in costing.

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