Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan hails start-up company's effort to bring medical devices at affordable cost

Hyderabad (Telangana) [India], December 16 : Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan on Thursday attended the Product Demonstration of Stent Retriever and Awareness Program on Acute Ischemic Stroke organised by S3V Vascular Technologies Limited, Hyderabad at Raj Bhavan, Hyderabad.
The stent retriever is an indigenous product manufactured by M/s. S3V Vascular Technologies Limited is a start-up company with the aim of bringing the cost of a stent retriever to Rs. 50,000 to make it even more affordable to all. Presently these are imported at the cost of around Rs. 4,00,000, as per an official statement.
Speaking on the occasion, the Governor appreciated the efforts of M/s. S3V Vascular Technologies Limited for making these valuable medical intervening devices indigenously at an affordable cost to improve healthcare in India.
"It is in fact the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi through Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan to make India self-reliant in each and every field so that India can play a bigger and more important part in the global economy," said Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan.
She thanked Prime Minister Modi for bringing in policies that are efficient, competitive and resilient for making indigenous manufacturing easier and wished that more and more such start-up companies should come up in the healthcare sector to make it economical and affordable to all.
In this program, Dr Balaram Bhargava, Former Director General, ICMR and Head Cordio Thorosis, AIIMS, New Delhi, Dr Mathew Cherian, Interventional Radiologist, Coimbatore, Sri M.B. Gowtama and Dr Vijay Gopal, Directors of S3V Vascular Technologies Limited participated.
"When blood stops flowing to the heart, you get a heart attack. In the same way, a stroke in the brain is a brain attack. A blood clot blocks the blood vessel of the brain, a blood vessel needs to be opened so that the person can walk again. But the problem is to open the blood vessel when the brain is still alive. So there is a time limit. So the faster the clot is removed the better it is," said Matthew Cherian speaking to ANI.
"First thing is to inform people around the country that a stroke is treatable, but the challenge we face in India is all the devices that take out the clot are imported from multi-national companies, Either from the USA or Europe. So because of that the material comes at 3 to 4 lakhs. Equipment and drugs will cost the patient close to 5 lakhs," he said.
"So one of the aims of S3V company is to try to make the catheters in India at 25 to 30 per cent of the cost. So we are trying to make the catheters in India close to 50k to 75k. So that within the government schemes we can treat the patients," he said.
The suction catheter has to go right inside the blood vessel and using the suction pump we take the clot. So the tube is inserted through the edition which is cut by laser cutters to give the shape, this device alone is purchased at 1,75, 000. It will make a big difference if we can make the product from 25 to 30k. In the same way, tubing is very complex, it has multiple layers, and all this has to go inside the body.
So the aim of the new venture is to see the technology is available to the poorest Indian through the Prime Minister's scheme. We should see no Indian die because of lack of money. If we can do that, our company will truly transform the country. The aim is not only to make the catheters just like the west but try to make them much better and try to start selling to other countries that cannot afford to sell the catheters. So that's Dr Balram's vision and Modi's vision.
Dr Balaram Bhargava said that Make for India and also making for the world which is the vision of our leadership, India will become a world leader in Health care, we have seen it in vaccines, drugs, Human resources, Digital India and now we are going to see in Medical devices, we are seeing unleashing of the medical device revolution in India and across the world. The product is ready, it is state of the art.
NG Badri Narayan said that In the next 4 to 5 months, we hope to commercially launch them in India. We are trying to see what price will fit in government reimbursement programs, so that's the target. The price is based on what would make it available to a common reimbursement program so that is the strategy.