Technology Development Board, New Delhi (TDB) provides financial assistance to Indian industrial concerns and other agencies, attempting development and commercial application of indigenous technology, or adapting imported technology to wider domestic applications. TDB aims to strengthen the weak zone of technology development and commercialization in the selected sector by supporting technology development in the industry with short, medium and long-term risk horizons.

The Indian medical devices market has been identified as a sunrise sector by the Government of India, with its valuation anticipated to reach USD 50 Billion by 2030 Ernst & Young India; 26 Nov., 2024. The estimated potential for growth in the sector could be contributed to various factors such as ageing population, chronic diseases, increasing health awareness and supportive government policies. Socio-economic contribution from this sector has become even more prominent since COVID-19, after India battled the global pandemic through large scale production of numerous medical products, ranging from ventilators and Real-Time Reverse Transcription Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR) kits to Infrared (IR) Thermometers and Personal Protective Equipment Kits.

Notwithstanding the enormous growth potential of Indian medical device sector, its global market share is still fairly low with most of the domestic manufacturing focused on consumable and disposables, i.e. the lower end of technology value chain. Consequently, India is highly dependent on global market for import (80-85%) of complex and high value medical devices, leading to massive import bills. Notably, imports from the United States, China, Germany, Singapore, and the Netherlands have increased prominently over the last few years underscoring India’s high dependency on these countries for critical medical technologies Press Information Bureau Delhi, 26 APR 2023 . The sector, therefore now stands at a cross-roads; it can either continue being a producer of low-end medical devices and consumables or could stimulate its core technological strength to manufacture high-end, affordable healthcare devices of globally competitive quality.

Realizing this, Government has identified medical devices sector as a priority area for the flagship 'Make in India' program and is committed to strengthen the manufacturing ecosystem through its ambitious initiatives. In the recently launched ‘Production Linked Incentive Scheme’ (PLI), the government is incentivizing incremental sales in medical devices with a 5% incentive rate for five year (2023-2027) to eligible companies operating in various target segments of this sector. TDB has also, over the years, supported development and commercialization of socially and technologically relevant medical devices, for example, 6MV medical Linear Accelerator (LINAC) for cancer therapy; PTCA Balloon dilation catheter; digitally enabled advanced universal ICU Ventilator, affordable Hemodialysis machine for rural public health centers etc. In order to build onto its previous efforts of strengthening country’s priority sectors, TDB is launching the current ‘Call for proposal’ to supplement existing policy initiatives to bridge the current medium to high technology gap in Indian medical devices industry.