Licence to Invent

Mir Imran, the man behind inventions that have saved millions of lives and become industry standards in the US, reveals the secret to his method and why India is not yet an innovation hub

- By SUVEEN SINHA & HIMANI KOTHARI

When Mir Imran was five, his mother gave him a licence to kill.

Not in the 007 way. As a child, Imran was curious and dexterous with a screwdriver. He would open up some of the things his family bought: Watch, transistor radio, clock, etc. Instead of screaming at him, his mother started to buy two of each. The boy was free to unravel one but must not touch the other.

Little did the mother know that her unusual tolerance as an Indian parent in Hyderabad of the 1960s would put Imran on the path to becoming an inventor whose success is matched only by his ability to stay out of the limelight. The latter—eluding the limelight—can also be attributed to his laser-sharp focus on coming up with solutions to problems and not really scaling them up as businesses.

Moving to the US in 1974, Imran went on to become a key figure in the team at Intec Systems that developed the first automatic implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) to be approved by the United States Federal Drug Administration (USFDA).

Automatic ICD is an electronic device that continuously monitors the heart. If the user experiences cardiac arrhythmia, it generates an electric shock to the heart to bring them back to life. It has become a standard in cardiac care and saved millions of lives. Eli Lilly, the global pharma giant now making headlines for its weight-loss drugs, bought Intec Systems, the company that owned the ICD, in 1985. Eventually it went to Boston Scientific in 2004 for $26 billion.

Cardiologist Michel Mirowski, who roped in Imran to work on the ICD, thought it would cost about $100,000 to develop. It ended up costing $27 million and took six years. The experience proved invaluable for Imran not only in inventing but also in raising funds. He would go on to set up Adam Ventures with his friends. It became one of the earliest investors in Google.