HYDERABAD: As the demand for hospitals for advanced medical devices is growing at a rapid pace, medical equipment market in India is growing at a robust pace. While this is presenting a tremendous opportunity for domestic manufacturers, there are challenges plaguing the domestic players.
“Indian medical equipment manufacturers are coming up with the best products and are also investing in innovation, research and development to compete with world-class players. But we face hurdles like high cost of finance and unfavourable regulatory regimes.
Even several government policies favour imports. For instance, Export Promotion Capital Goods scheme favours hospitals to import devices at zero duty. Though states like Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat are trying to promote domestic medical equipment making, more needs to be done to create a favourable ecosystem for indigenous medical device makers,” said Sumeet Aggarwal, MD. Midmark India.
According to industry analysts, Indian medical equipment market is pegged at more than $4 billion, but more than 60 per cent of the market is catered to by imports. While big MNCs like GE Healthcare, Philips Medical, Siemens and Johnson & Johnson have presence in the market, there are also home-grown players like Trivitron Healthcare, TTK Healthcare and Appasamy Associates, who have emerged as successful indigenous manufacturers, facing all odds.
“More needs to be done to ensure that a level-playing field is created for Indian makers of medical devices. Either increasing duty on imports or providing taxation incentives, and subsidies to local manufacturers will help to some extent. Another important area government needs to support is to ensure that local manufacturers get finance at lesser rates for setting up innovation and R&D facilities,” said Mohammed Niaz Ahmed Khan, MD of SAP Medicals and Oasis Nephro Care.