Introduction
India has traditionally relied on imports of health care solutions such as medical devices and diagnostic technologies, but the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the supply chains for these solutions. It was therefore time for India to look within its own borders to find deployment-ready innovations for managing the pandemic.
Within a day after a nationwide COVID-19 lockdown went into effect on March 24, 2020, the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms (C-CAMP), a leading hub of deep-technology life sciences innovation and entrepreneurship in India, launched the COVID-19 Innovations Deployment Accelerator (C-CIDA). C-CAMP is an initiative of the government of India’s Department of Biotechnology. Its role in identifying, funding, and fast-tracking indigenous COVID-19 technologies to make them ready for deployment has been impressive. Within a month of C-CIDA’s launch, through a rigorous multistage assessment and diligence process, C-CIDA selected 30 start-ups and innovators as C-CIDA “Stars for Impact” and fast-tracked their efforts toward deployment. Today, over a year and a half later, 22 C-CIDA innovations have been deployed and have affected more than 1 million lives during the COVID-19 pandemic.1 Many of the innovations that have been deployed across the country to meet COVID-19 requirements have proven useful even in non-COVID-19 settings. They will strengthen the health care system in the long run.
BackgroundC-CAMP was conceptualized by the government of India’s Department of Biotechnology in 2009 as an enabler or catalyst of cutting-edge research and innovation in the life sciences. C-CAMP is part of the Bangalore Life Science Cluster, along with the National Centre for Biological Sciences and the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine. |
How can you replicate or adapt this promising practice?Collaborate with diverse, expert partnersC-CIDA partnered with key industry and investor bodies with different expertise, including the innovation curator Social Alpha, accelerator platform Health Innovation Exchange of the United Nations, collaborative platform MedTechConnect, sustainability advisory firm Vikaasa at Xynteo, incubator Atal Incubation Centre at the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, resource aggregator India Health Fund, nonprofit global health organization PATH, nonprofit coalition Action COVID-19 Team (ACT), and coworking space 91Springboard. Handling the pandemic crisis required partnering with many types of stakeholders who had complementary skills and were capable of agile and nimble program management. In this collaborative environment of C-CIDA, multiple partners came together, with C-CAMP taking the lead. Have clearly defined goalsFrom the onset, C-CIDA was clear that it would choose innovations that were near deployment and would help them reach the market as quickly as possible. This clear goal helped C-CIDA narrow down the innovations they wanted to bring on board and to focus on getting the funding, validation, testing, and marketing needed for deployment. Scale up and deploy innovationsC-CIDA worked on bringing each innovation to the market in two phases: the first phase was developing the innovation and the second phase involved scale-up and deployment. The idea was not to bring a handful of new devices to the market but to get them ready for mass manufacturing and on the market so they could benefit thousands of people. |
What are the lessons learned from this bright spot?
Support high-impact innovations
C-CAMP leveraged its strong, decade-long presence in the start-up ecosystem to identify, fast-track, and deploy innovations that, with small modifications, could play an important role in India’s COVID-19 response. Within 30 days of C-CIDA’s launch, it received more than 1,100 innovation applications from across the country. After rigorous assessment of these technologies, clocking more than 4,000 hours, C-CIDA selected 30 technologies with potential for creating an impact in managing the pandemic.
Help to deploy innovations
Through its partners, C-CIDA helped the start-ups get validated and scale up the production of devices. Further, through its corporate social responsibility networks, C-CIDA focused on deployments in primary health centers and government hospitals in the public health system so they would be prepared for the third COVID-19 wave. For example, C-CIDA helped Coeo Labs deploy its Saans Pro technology in five states and helped Cardiac Design Labs deploy MIRCaM and Padma Vitals. These are detailed further in the sections below.
Spotlight
Coeo Labs (now a division of InnAccel Technologies) has been part of C-CIDA since March 2020. It had two products when it applied for C-CIDA support: VAPCare, an artificial intelligence-based secretions and oral hygiene management device for preventing ventilator-associated pneumonia, and Saans, a neonatal continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device to prevent respiratory distress syndrome in low-resource settings.
C-CIDA helped Coeo Labs secure funding from its partner Applied Materials and enabled technical support through its partner Thermax to develop Saans Pro, a breathing support device to provide CPAP and high-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) therapy to COVID-19 patients. After Saans Pro was developed, C-CIDA facilitated the deployment of the product across the states of Delhi, Manipur, Karnataka, Maharashtra, and Uttar Pradesh, which benefited thousands of patients.
Annually, India loses thousands of infants (infant mortality in India is ~29 deaths for every 1000 live births) due to respiratory compromise (not related to COVID-19). Timely breathing support can reduce this number significantly. Currently, Coeo Labs and C-CIDA are working to ensure essential breathing support for the neonatal and pediatric population using the Saans Pro device. They are also working with donors and state governments to ensure the Saans Pro device reaches each hospital that treats the neonatal and pediatric population.
“C-CAMP has done full handholding from development through the deployment of the product. Today, we have more than 650 Saans Pro devices installed across India, impacting more than 10,000 patients directly by enabling crucial breathing support. Not just in India, our solution Saans is getting into sub-Saharan Africa. We have our first deployment of Saans CPAP [continuous positive airway pressure] and HFNC [high-flow nasal cannula] devices for neonates in Ethiopia under an International Finance Corporation funded program. The support from C-CAMP has helped us, as well as patients in India and sub-Saharan Africa.” —Nitesh Kumar Jangir, Co-Founder of Coeo Labs
Cardiac Design Labs is a Bangalore-based medical technology company that provides efficient cardiac monitoring and diagnosis by deploying intelligent systems for automatic remote reporting, which saves both time and money. C-CIDA helped Cardiac Design Labs deploy two technologies: (1) MIRCaM, a noninvasive wearable medical device that allows cardiologists to remotely interact with and diagnose a cardiac patient from their cellphones, and (2) Padma Vitals, which monitors electrocardiogram activity, respiration rate, oxygen saturation, body temperature, and blood pressure without a cuff and has the capability to monitor patients in intensive care with just a wearable device. Padma Vitals and MIRCaM devices have been deployed in COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 wards for remote monitoring.
“C-CIDA is a highly visible platform made for looking at innovative solutions. Being selected there made us visible to customers and enablers likewise. It is always good for products to be recognized; that gives others confidence to look at products like ours.” —Anand Madanagopal, Founder and CEO of Cardiac Design Labs
How was this promising practice implemented?
Select promising innovations
C-CIDA called for entries in 11 subthemes: diagnostics, assisted respiratory devices, prescreening, vital parameter monitoring, air sanitizers, surface sanitizers, therapeutics, drug screening platform, wastewater decontamination technology, cold chain support, and telemedicine. The assessment of each subtheme was led by two members with doctoral degrees in that subject and two business experts. These experts vetted the applications and short-listed them daily in April 2020. The short-listed applications were then presented to a group of 20 to 22 C-CAMP members and external collaborators at 5 p.m. every evening. After further discussion, C-CIDA selected five to seven innovations every week in April 2020.
Fast-track deployment of innovations
After the rigorous vetting process, C-CIDA connected the selected 30 start-ups with industry and government agencies for scale-up and on-the-ground implementation of their innovations. Based on its assessment, C-CIDA helped fast-track promising innovations through processes like pilot deployment, operational validation, field implementation, scale-up through industry and manufacturing partnerships, regulatory pathway navigation, investor connections and fundraising, and promotion for national and international visibility.
Work with partners with diverse expertise
The 30 selected innovations were divided into 14 categories, or verticals, each of which was led by C-CAMP members who were experts in that field. The verticals and start-ups included the followings:
- Rapid diagnostic kits: Cosara Diagnostics, Ampligene India Biotech, Huwel Lifesciences, and DNA Xperts
- Assisted ventilation: Aerobiosys Innovations, Coeo Labs, Avyantara Health Technologies, and Biodesign Innovation Labs
- Remote vital statistics monitoring system: Cardiac Design Labs, MedIoTek, NemoCare, and Dozee
- Cold chain viral sample transport in remote locations: Blackfrog Technologies, Tessol, and PLUSS
- Air and surface sanitizing technologies: Biomoneta, Leafbox, and RR Animal Health Care
- Preventive technology: OmicsGen LifeSciences, OMG Innovations LLP, and Clensta Technologies
- Immunity-boosting nutraceuticals: Mallipathra Nutraceutical and Aspartika Biotech
- Novel approaches in therapeutics: Stempeutics Research Bangalore
- Telemedicine: Ubiqare Health
- Artificial intelligence-/machine learning-based prescreening technologies: Salcit Technologies, Docturnal, Predible Health, and AIkenist
- Novel screening platform for COVID-19 drugs: Eyestem research
- Control of viral contaminants in wastewater: N/A
- Therapeutic approaches: Innaumation Medical Devices
- Antiviral personal protective equipment kit: iSHIELD and Color Threads (product of Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine Labs led by Dr. Praveen Vemula)
The C-CAMP members worked closely with the innovators to understand their needs—from funding and industry support to validation, visibility, and other areas. C-CIDA’s support was flexible and dynamic, based on what each of the innovative companies needed.
Voices from the partners
Handling the pandemic crisis required partnering with many types of stakeholders such as key industry leaders, public health experts and investor bodies who had complementary skills and were capable of agile and nimble program management. Below are the voices from two prominent partners who provided funding, technical assistance, and overall thought leadership.
Social Alpha is a multistage innovation curation and venture-development platform for science and technology start-ups that aim to address the most critical social, economic, and environmental challenges. It has worked closely with C-CAMP on C-CIDA.
“I am actually pleased to see how several start-ups were able to pivot during the pandemic and were able to respond to the emerging and previously unknown needs. India’s start-up ecosystem responded very well to the pandemic situation. And C-CIDA has demonstrated that if everyone in the ecosystem comes together to support our nascent science and technology innovation landscape, we can make a giant leap forward to address not only our current health care needs but also address any unfortunate and unforeseen situation, like the COVID pandemic, in the future. The power of collaboration and noncompeting partnerships need to be communicated widely so that our institutions stop working in silos. Start-ups have demonstrated it well beyond any doubt.” —Manoj Kumar, Cofounder and CEO of Social Alpha and C-CAMP board member
PATH, a nonprofit global health organization, has worked closely with C-CIDA.
“For me, it was a fantastic effort. I think we achieved a lot. It did two things: it highlighted what are the solutions that are available, and secondly it also helped those solutions to access the market, which is actually the largest challenge. It solved issues—like how do they get market access, how do they get regulatory clearance in an emergency situation—so that they could scale up quickly and have impact” —Neeraj Jain, Country Director of PATH India
Supplementary material
Sources
- COVID-19 Innovations Deployment Accelerator. Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms website. Published 2020. Accessed October 4, 2021. https://www.ccamp.res.in/covid-19-innovations-deployment-accelerator
