Low-cost interventions help India fight the coronavirus
By Debarshi Dasgupta
An AgVa Healthcare employee assembling a ventilator during a demonstration in Noida, India, on March 25, 2020.PHOTO: AFP
NEW DELHI - A neurosurgeon at a top government hospital in Delhi, Dr Deepak Agrawal would often see families struggle to meet the steep expenses involved in maintaining chronic patients on ventilator support.
It was with them in mind that he and his business partner, robotics scientist Diwakar Vaish, came up with a cost-effective solution in 2017 - a toaster-sized ventilator that is priced at less than a fourth of conventional ventilators and one that families could take home and even operate themselves.
In a country that is estimated to have around 48,000 ventilators, it is this low-cost product from AgVa Healthcare that is now helping meet the surge in demand for ventilators to support Covid-19 patients with breathing difficulties.
About 1,000 units are operational in the market and production has been augmented from 100 units a month in 2019 to 500 a day now with manufacturing support from Maruti Suzuki India Limited, the country's leading automobile manufacturer.
"We plan to ramp this up to 1,000 per day by May 10," said Dr Agrawal, a co-founder of AgVa Healthcare, which has been swamped with orders since March.
"The only reason we could have this humongous increase in scale is because of several innovations and indigenisation of technologies that ensured we were not copying other ventilator makers and competing for the same components that are now in short supply globally," he told The Straits Times on Tuesday (April 28).
Key measures that have helped reduce costs include using disposable plastic valves that are manufactured by the firm locally and relying on cheaper but medical-grade sensors. The firm has also set up a factory in Shenzhen in China and expects to produce another 10,000 units per month there in another fortnight or so.
The ventilator is currently priced at around $2,821 and has generated interest from the United States, Europe, Africa and even South-east Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
"We will begin exporting once we are more comfortably placed as far as our resources are concerned and have met domestic demand," Dr Agrawal said.
AgVa Healthcare is one of the many Indian entities that are stepping up to the challenge of better managing the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as hopefully eliminating the coronavirus, with home-grown and affordable interventions that may also have spillover benefits for the rest of the world once India begins to export these products.
Besides ventilators, they include testing kits, personal protective equipment, mobile ultraviolet disinfection units used to sanitise hospitals and online healthcare services, among others.
Another intervention that has generated interest is a Covid-19 test kit that is expected to bring down the cost of testing from 4,500 rupees (S$ 84.50) now to somewhere around 800 rupees.
Developed by a team of researchers from the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the kit has eliminated the use of fluorescent dye probes - commonly used in other testing kits - to keep costs low.
A standard "reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction" or RT-PCR test for Covid-19 - more reliable than cheaper and rapid antibody tests - uses fluorescent dye probes that help illuminate coronavirus samples.
The team at IIT Delhi has identified unique regions (short stretches of RNA sequences) in the coronavirus not present in other human coronaviruses. This enables the detection of Covid-19 cases with the help of a simpler technology that relies on a fluorescent dye manufactured in India instead of probes that have to be imported at a higher cost.
This is used along with a very specific set of primers that can detect and amplify only the novel coronavirus. Primers are short, synthesised fragments of nucleic acid that help amplify DNA of pathogens like viruses.
"With a pandemic headed our way and the need for carrying out hundreds of thousands of tests in a highly populated country like India, we realised we could not rely simply on imported and expensive testing kits," Professor Bishwajit Kundu, part of the team at IIT Delhi that developed the kit, told The Straits Times.
"We needed an affordable and indigenous testing kit for India that could also be exported to other countries."
The kit has been approved for use by the Indian Council of Medical Research and there are around 30 companies, including foreign ones, currently negotiating with the technology transfer team at IIT Delhi to acquire manufacturing rights.
Prof Kundu added they should soon be able to choose the first batch of firms who will begin mass production of the testing kits.
Dr Agrawal said India is best suited to become a hub for developing low-cost technologies and launching them.
"We have the market required to be able to make a product frugal as well as test it out," he said. "This ecosystem can help India become a successful launchpad for products that are not just cost-effective but also of good quality."
Low-cost interventions help India fight the coronavirus
By Debarshi Dasgupta
An AgVa Healthcare employee assembling a ventilator during a demonstration in Noida, India, on March 25, 2020.PHOTO: AFP
NEW DELHI - A neurosurgeon at a top government hospital in Delhi, Dr Deepak Agrawal would often see families struggle to meet the steep expenses involved in maintaining chronic patients on ventilator support.
It was with them in mind that he and his business partner, robotics scientist Diwakar Vaish, came up with a cost-effective solution in 2017 - a toaster-sized ventilator that is priced at less than a fourth of conventional ventilators and one that families could take home and even operate themselves.
In a country that is estimated to have around 48,000 ventilators, it is this low-cost product from AgVa Healthcare that is now helping meet the surge in demand for ventilators to support Covid-19 patients with breathing difficulties.
About 1,000 units are operational in the market and production has been augmented from 100 units a month in 2019 to 500 a day now with manufacturing support from Maruti Suzuki India Limited, the country's leading automobile manufacturer.
"We plan to ramp this up to 1,000 per day by May 10," said Dr Agrawal, a co-founder of AgVa Healthcare, which has been swamped with orders since March.
"The only reason we could have this humongous increase in scale is because of several innovations and indigenisation of technologies that ensured we were not copying other ventilator makers and competing for the same components that are now in short supply globally," he told The Straits Times on Tuesday (April 28).
Key measures that have helped reduce costs include using disposable plastic valves that are manufactured by the firm locally and relying on cheaper but medical-grade sensors. The firm has also set up a factory in Shenzhen in China and expects to produce another 10,000 units per month there in another fortnight or so.
The ventilator is currently priced at around $2,821 and has generated interest from the United States, Europe, Africa and even South-east Asian countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore.
"We will begin exporting once we are more comfortably placed as far as our resources are concerned and have met domestic demand," Dr Agrawal said.
AgVa Healthcare is one of the many Indian entities that are stepping up to the challenge of better managing the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as hopefully eliminating the coronavirus, with home-grown and affordable interventions that may also have spillover benefits for the rest of the world once India begins to export these products.
Besides ventilators, they include testing kits, personal protective equipment, mobile ultraviolet disinfection units used to sanitise hospitals and online healthcare services, among others.
Another intervention that has generated interest is a Covid-19 test kit that is expected to bring down the cost of testing from 4,500 rupees (S$ 84.50) now to somewhere around 800 rupees.
Developed by a team of researchers from the Kusuma School of Biological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi, the kit has eliminated the use of fluorescent dye probes - commonly used in other testing kits - to keep costs low.
A standard "reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction" or RT-PCR test for Covid-19 - more reliable than cheaper and rapid antibody tests - uses fluorescent dye probes that help illuminate coronavirus samples.
The team at IIT Delhi has identified unique regions (short stretches of RNA sequences) in the coronavirus not present in other human coronaviruses. This enables the detection of Covid-19 cases with the help of a simpler technology that relies on a fluorescent dye manufactured in India instead of probes that have to be imported at a higher cost.
This is used along with a very specific set of primers that can detect and amplify only the novel coronavirus. Primers are short, synthesised fragments of nucleic acid that help amplify DNA of pathogens like viruses.
"With a pandemic headed our way and the need for carrying out hundreds of thousands of tests in a highly populated country like India, we realised we could not rely simply on imported and expensive testing kits," Professor Bishwajit Kundu, part of the team at IIT Delhi that developed the kit, told The Straits Times.
"We needed an affordable and indigenous testing kit for India that could also be exported to other countries."
The kit has been approved for use by the Indian Council of Medical Research and there are around 30 companies, including foreign ones, currently negotiating with the technology transfer team at IIT Delhi to acquire manufacturing rights.
Prof Kundu added they should soon be able to choose the first batch of firms who will begin mass production of the testing kits.
Dr Agrawal said India is best suited to become a hub for developing low-cost technologies and launching them.
"We have the market required to be able to make a product frugal as well as test it out," he said. "This ecosystem can help India become a successful launchpad for products that are not just cost-effective but also of good quality."
Low-cost interventions help India fight the coronavirus
At nearly 3000 USD it amounts to INR 2.25 lakhs. Add customs, GST, it could well be INR 3 lakhs or more. That's the average cost of a ventilator here. Frankly, I don't know what this article is all about.
The initial price of any product from start ups are usually expensive. Price reduces when production is scaled up, this company has secured large orders from the govt. and some foreign companies. Price should come down with time.
Also what is the average cost of a ventilator now ? Given that the demand is surging and production & supply chain bottlenecks are everywhere ? The price should be a lot higher now, also the lack of scalability of the traditional design is a problem when demand is surging. This model is a lot smaller than the traditional models which matters a lot given the space constraints in hospitals these days. Add all this with the fact that this is the first ventilator designed and developed in country, I think there is plenty to go on here.
I posted tweets of Jyoti CNC manufacturing ventilators priced at around INR 1 lakh earlier this month. Add GST & at peak duties it'd still be INR 1.28 - a far cry from Aqua, irrespective of scale of production.
Further ,there are plenty of manufacturers out there who've moved ahead from prototypes into production with the average cost being anywhere between INR 1-2 lakhs. The only variables here are the quality, durability & after sales service which as of now is of an unknown nature with every single of these fly by night operators.
From what I've understood by speaking to my ex batch mates & friends in the medical equipment manufacturing biz, a ventilator isn't some piece hi tech engineering. It's just that people weren't aware of it's business potential. A lot of that was cleared by this pandemic. Moving ahead you'd see a lot of developments in the medical equipment diagnostic business like CT scans etc. We certainly don't lack the brain power or even the expertise to develop such products which hopefully can be as state of art as the best that renowned MNCs since generations in the biz can offer.
Interesting, I must've missed those. Jyoti is making ventilators from their own design or some older designs ? If they can do it that cheap then why not order from them ?
Much needed this, I would say. Gotten sick of the constant whining from the US medical industry about price caps. Some domestic competition is very much needed. Have read about the development of stents by many Indian companies ? That was facilitated by the price cap, this is why the US manufacturers hates the price caps so much :
India made cardiac stent wins quality and efficacy test against international brands
Indian stent makers: No more on the fringes of business - Express Healthcare
East Meets West: Chinese, Indian Stents Aim for Global Market
How reduction in stent prices has made domestic players competitive
Rajkot's Jyoti CNC makes indigenous ventilators costing ₹1 lakh
Make in India fuels fight against Covid-19
Lock down extended by 2 weeks, till 17th May....
Nothing surprising. The situation in hotspots is still quite bad.
Intelligence Community Statement on Origins of COVID-19
NEWS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE ODNI News Release No. 11-20 April 30, 2020 Intelligence Community Statement on Origins of COVID-19 WA...
The Office of the Director of National Intelligence today issued the following Intelligence Community (IC) statement:
“The entire Intelligence Community has been consistently providing critical support to U.S. policymakers and those responding to the COVID-19 virus, which originated in China. The Intelligence Community also concurs with the wide scientific consensus that the COVID-19 virus was not manmade or genetically modified.
“As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”
Test rate up to over 100,000/day in the UK now. 122,347 yesterday.
www.theguardian.com
Hancock says UK hit 100,000 tests amid claims tally is artificially boosted
Government now counting ordered or posted home testing kits even before sample taken
Today's tally - 2200<
Total tally - 37,200<
First time to my memory, we've crossed 2000 infections in a day.
Maharashtra
Today's tally - 1000<
Total tally - 11,500<
The first time Maharashtra has crossed 1000 cases in a day.
Mumbai
Today's tally - 750<
Total tally - 7,800 <
Just when I thought that if the past week's trend of 500 cases per day should continue for a week indicating a plateauing of cases, comes this bit of news.