Narayana Health, MSMF launch innovation centre

New Delhi: Healthcare services provider Narayana Health, in association with Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation, on Tuesday launched Mazumdar Shaw Medical Foundation (MSMF) MedTech Innovation Centre - BIRAC BIONEST, at Narayana Health City in Bengaluru. The centre will help medtech entrepreneurs who are looking to address affordability, access and innovation challenges in the healthcare ecosystem, Narayana Health and MSMF said in a joint statement.

Narayana Health Founder and Chairman Devi Prasad Shetty said MSMF's vision is to fill the gap in healthcare innovation by creating a single platform for entrepreneurs to co-create solutions in conjunction with doctors, scientists and technology enthusiasts.

"The physical infrastructure will help us to further strengthen our mission, as the infrastructure can support 39 startups at any given point of time with the total seating capacity of 82. We are looking at nurturing 10 startups in 2021," Shetty said.

"This is a culmination of one of our key objectives, which was to set up a medtech innovation hub within the hospital," Biocon Chairperson and MSMF Founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw said at a virtual press conference. She noted that one of the key focus areas for Indian medtech has to be affordable innovation, because we need to make sure that anything which comes out of these labs is accessible to anyone who needs it and affordability has to be at the heart of it.

"Affordable innovation is my driving mantra for whatever I do at Biocon and I am sure it can be the driving mantra for anything to do with innovation in India when it comes to life sciences," Mazumdar-Shaw said.