IIT Hyderabad Launches Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship – An Incubator Dedicated for Healthcare Sector

Startups in healthcare are a rarity in India; not only it requires high cost of investments but also they need specialized man-power and in-depth research to launch a product. Understanding the needs of startups which are aiming to make a dent in the health care sector, IIT Hyderabad has launched a dedicated incubator: Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship.

This unique centre will design and train entrepreneurs to develop low-cost solutions in healthcare sector, and will help them to commercialize it for mass adaption.

Telangana IT and panchayat raj minister KT Rama Rao inaugurated this incubation centre, saying that it s “in line with his government’s focus on healthcare and technology sectors..”.

Recently, Telangana government has started a major digitization drive wherein health records of its 36 million citizens would be saved in a cloud based database, which can be accessed by anyone using Aadhar Card or a Unique ID.

After T-hub, which has been hailed as India’s largest tech incubator, this is IIT Hyderabad’s second incubation centre.

Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship has been promoted by Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and IIT-Bombay alumni: Rajesh Mashruwala and Avi Nash, and will be headed by Head of Department of Biomedical Engineering, IIT, Hyderabad, Renu John.

At the inauguration ceremony, B V R Mohan Reddy, Chairman IIT Hyderabad, Rajagopal said, “We have to make innovation a part of our education culture. IIT Hyderabad is today at the fore-front of the second generation IITs. With this Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship they bring technology into healthcare aiming to touch the lives of people.”

As per the statement released, this incubator will be empowered with a physical office and research facilities available inside IIT Hyderabad. Mentors and researchers from the campus will identify and groom entrepreneurs with ideas related with healthcare sector and will assist them all the way to “productization, scaling and eventual social adoption and impact”

The focus is to create a stream of ‘bio-innovation’, which can help Indians to manage their healthcare needs and requirements.

Healthcare Incubators in India

This is 2^nd biggest healthcare based incubator program launched in India. In 2013, Pradeep Jaisingh, a healthcare entrepreneur launched HealthStart, which was declared as India’s first such incubator program designed for health sector. As of now, it has successfully funded 7 companies in two batches.

Recently, Pradeep said, “It’s important we create a devoted space to health. It may include tech, but its mission is different — to help people live a better of quality of life.”

Healthcare in India is no doubt in shambles – on one hand there are extremely expensive, 5-star hospital facilities which can only be afforded by rich; and on the other hand there is Government sponsored health care facilities which is always over-crowded, poorly maintained and delivering sub-standard services.

Hopefully, such healthcare incubators will assist entrepreneurs to come up with better, economical and efficient medical systems, which is the need of the hour.