India needs to be proactive in IP creation: Amber Malhotra

India needs to be proactive in IP creation: Amber Malhotra

We believe that the opportunity lies in integrating the US University system with the innovation ecosystems, which the Indian government is currently trying to put in here.

ETHealthworld spoke to Amber Malhotra, Founder, Managing Partner and CEO, Sam Circle Venture LLC, US to know more about the opportunities in the healthcare sector and the need of technology.

Modi –Trump Meet

Disruptive changes in the healthcare sector?

Traditionally, the U.S. has been very strong in terms of creating its intellectual property and IP because of its strong university system. India can take a tremendous advantage from that. Like Prime Minister also said, if in case US technology and Indian skills can match, then there is an opportunity for us to solve some of the present problems that India faces.

We believe that the opportunity lies in integrating the US University system with the innovation ecosystems, which the Indian government is currently trying to put in here. This also should make an emphasis on the creation of IP or Co-creation of IP in India.

In case we want to make programs like Make in India successful, which leads to manufacturing, so India needs to move towards IP creation. I think this is where the opportunity to create the synergy between US and Indian institutions lies.

India International Innovation Institute : Impacting healthcare

Sam Circle is a venture development firm working with US Universities and health care systems to co-develop and commercialize its IP in India and to create solutions along

with its capital and operating partners. Our focus is on healthcare, education, technology, energy, and mobility. We have set up the India International Innovation Institute in the US where we have twelve US Universities working with us in various initiatives to create solutions related to the sectors as I mentioned earlier.

The whole idea is that there is a large amount of research that is sitting within these US systems, which has potential applications for the solution that a country like India is looking for.

Now, traditionally India has not invested in its R&D. Our academic institutions and research institutions have operated independently of each other. We also don’t have enough investment that comes into our R&D. Primarily, all our educational institutions in India depend upon academic fees. Hence, there is no additional source of revenue for them.

We feel that the US can help us in that area, where the R&D that is sitting there can be brought to India and along with the Indian operating partners we can customize it to suit the Indian requirements.

This is what Sam Circle’s objective is, where through our India International Innovation Institutes, we are creating partnerships between US and Indian institutions to create a venture development model. Through which, then we can take some of these solutions for commercialization in India and help in creating an ecosystem of employability and entrepreneurship.

The idea for us is also to embed these i4 centres in the Indian Universities, so that they are relevant to the geographical locations where these universities are situated in. In a sense, they make an impact on the regions.

Currently, we have 4 such centers in India, from there we are working on various initiatives related to research, faculty development and training programs. I would like to emphasize that it’s not important to have qualified people but to have skilled people and that is our emphasis from this endeavour.

We also believe that through India International Innovation Institutes, US institutions will also gain a lot, considering there are only a few people who can afford currently to go to the US, but we are making an effort that US Universities reach out to India.

The young population of more than 100 million people to create these skill-based programs and that they will kind of generate additional revenues, which can be in the tune of more than 400 million dollars for them in the next 20 years.

Model H : Your current initiatives in India and the US?

Model H is designed in collaboration with leading healthcare systems from the US to create a connected network of homes, hospital and human population to provide preventive and emergency care in India. We believe that the future of healthcare lies in bringing data analytics technology, training skills, medical equipment and technology in a standardized protocol fashion.

The model hospital operating system has been created with facility standards and clinical protocols, medical equipment, and technologies, procurement, and sourcing, electronic medical records, and training programs. We are setting up a network comprising of 5000 beds in the next 10 years with a capital outlay of US $500 million.

Currently, we have 1400 beds at various stages of planning and execution and we will be activating our first licensed hospital of 475 beds facility in the southern part of India. Alongside, we are also creating a partnership with a lot of medical institutions in India to create capacity building programs for doctors, nurses, and paramedics.

We especially believe that there is scope to bring finishing school and advanced learning programs for nurses and paramedics and also programs for technicians to handle the advancement in technology that is happening in India.

Technology : Disruptive Healthcare Advancement

Healthcare as we know has started becoming multidisciplinary. There’s a lot of technology that is coming into healthcare, so on one end we need to make advancement into clinical research areas.

There are solutions like artificial intelligence, gene mapping, precision medicine, 3D printing and the Model H network that we are setting up in India. We are trying to bring some of these solutions into the country to achieve the scale that a country like India offers us.

We need to make sure that we make the capital utilization in an optical manner and also the operational efficiencies of these technologies need to be such that they are easy to maintain. We have a very strong belief that you cannot bring a solution which has worked in the west.

India has its own challenges in terms of its demographic, cultural needs, densely populated cities and urbanization that is happening

This again brings us the point that country like India needs to get into the development of co-creation of these IPs. We strongly believe that even in healthcare, we will be working jointly with our Indian partners to co-create these IPs, so that we get solutions which are very India specific but in a sense, they are based on the advancement that Western economies have done in the last so many years.

This we believe is a model which is beneficial for economy like US, which has a very strong and robust healthcare system and that is where most of our partners are based and create an implementation network in India, so that in the coming years we can create a healthcare model, which is not only cost-effective, but also gives quality outputs.

SAM Circle Initiatives

We have set up an innovation centre at IIT Delhi with an objective of co-creation of IP from India in finding solutions which have global applications. Our objective is to find some cutting edge startups from India which we feel have an application for solutions in the US market. Hence, the overall model that we are working in is not just a one-way street, but we feel that frugal innovation that’s happening in India can help very advanced markets like the US.

Through our universities and healthcare system network, we want to commercialize some of these solutions in the US market, which eventually will help the US also to become more efficient in how it currently runs and delivers its healthcare services and will also help in providing low-cost solutions which are of high quality for its community in the US.

SAM Circle : Preventive health/ Healthcare Solutions

Model H is a hub and spoke model where we are setting up fourteen cluster network of hub and spoke. We are also expecting our first license hospital to be operational in the third quarter of 2020. One of our major initiatives is to consider that healthcare is moving towards prevention, where one needs to manage healthy people and keep them healthy rather than treating sick people in the hospitals.

We are bringing some of our clinical protocols based on our culinary wellness programs which emphasize how one should eat well, exercise well and how one should keep mental wellbeing. This is based on protocols developed in the US and customised in India to suit the cultural sensitivity and lifestyle pattern of Indian population.

We believe this preventive healthcare model is again strongly based on data that one needs to collect and is customised for the requirement of each individual. The application can be in the corporate working spaces, in the residential communities, even in the school programmes to keep children healthy

We believe that preventive healthcare is the way how healthcare will be delivered and managed not just in the world but in India also.