IIT Madras and GE Healthcare to join in innovating healthcare solutions for India

28th January 2014
IIT Madras and GE Healthcare to join in innovating healthcare solutions for India
Terri Bresenham, President & CEO, GE Healthcare, South Asia ( left) and Dr. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre, IIT-Madras seal the agreement to collaborate on healthcare solutions, Chennai, January 28 2014

Chennai, January 29, 2014: The Indian Institute of Technology Madras throough its Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre (HTIC) and the US-based healthcare giant GE Healthcare have announced a three-year collaborative research and development partnership for innovating a range of disruptive and affordable healthcare solutions.
GE will provide a grant of Rs. 7.5 million to HTIC towards research and development of these disruptive solutions that can benefit all emerging markets. The collaboration will encourage “open innovation” and leverage co-creation of solutions with the involvement of multiple stakeholders such as academia, start-ups, governments, NGOs and clinicians to achieve these goals. This initiative will address the unmet and unvoiced needs in the areas of mother and child health, cardiology and cancer
Said Terri Bresenham, President & CEO, GE Healthcare, South Asia: “We at GE Healthcare are at work for a healthier India through development of innovative and affordable technology solutions. Accelerating innovation for affordable healthcare requires an ecosystem of partners and collaborative efforts by all stakeholders. We firmly believe that the ideas and innovations developed by the next generation of researchers will be an added benefit to the healthcare ecosystem. This collaboration between HTIC and GE Healthcare will bring together start-up dynamism and corporate scalability to healthcare innovations while putting the unserved customer at the centre of healthcare innovation”.
Added Dr. Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam, Head, Healthcare Technology Innovation Centre, IIT-Madras: " At HTIC, we believe that a collaborative ecosystem is essential for innovative and disruptive solutions for affordable and accessible healthcare. HTIC today anchors a dynamic med-tech innovation ecosystem of healthcare institutions, industry and government agencies in pursuit of delivering high impact healthcare technologies. We are pleased to join hands with GE Healthcare, a healthcare technology leader with tremendous knowledge on disruptive innovations. Together, we look forward to develop a pool of affordable and accessible technologies & solutions that create large impact in healthcare in India, and the world.”
The partnership between GE and HTIC will follow three critical steps to create disruptive technologies for healthcare –
- Identifying unmet and un-voiced needs in the areas of maternal and child health, cardiology, oncology, peri-operative care and digital health.
- Assessing the impact the we can make to the under-served population and arriving at a solution
- Iterative and immersive co-creation of solutions using an open innovation concept involving GE, HTIC, Clinical practitioners and care givers in these under-served areas.
Apart from funding towards R&D, GE Healthcare may assist in market research, product management support and innovative business model solutions. Projects will be selected on the basis of innovative concepts, impact to the ecosystem, market readiness and the business potential.