Can India Takeover The Medical Devices Sector?

The government's efforts to boost the domestic medical devices sector do not have a serious ring about them

- Joe C. Mathew

The setting could not have been more perfect. At the annual World Economic Forum (WEF) summit in Davos in January this year, a small Indian firm, Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD), found itself centre stage after Switzerland-based NGO, Global Alliance for Vaccine and Immunization (GAVI), announced a partnership with it for its injection safety campaign.

What made it more momentous for HMD was the fact that announcement came in the presence of the biggest ever Indian contingent at WEF, where the Narendra Modi government’s branding exercise for its flagship “Make in India” initiative was also in full swing. Incidentally, the medical devices sector, the industry which HMD represents, was among the ones that were being showcased under the Make in India initiative.

Unlike its more accomplished cousins in the healthcare sector — the domestic generic drug and vaccine manufacturing companies — Indian medical equipment makers are hardly among the headlines. Hence, the partnership served to put the spotlight on the domestic medical device makers in general and HMD, the private firm that specialises in the manufacture of auto disposable syringes in particular. Though the partnership was worth only $1.5 million, it amounted to a great deal more in terms of its symbolic importance.

A Dream And A Compulsion

Making India a global manufacturing hub for medical devices is the government’s dream. It is also a domestic compulsion as self-sufficiency in 14,000 different product types ranging from wound closure pads to stents to