Parliamentary panel asks govt to start RLI scheme to promote RnD and innovation

New Delhi, September 27, 2022:

The Department-Related Parliamentary Standing Committee on ministry of health and family welfare has suggested to the Ministry to start Research Linked Incentive (RLI) scheme in line with the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme in order to promote research and development and innovation in the segment. The PLI scheme should also be broad based to include all medical devices, it added.

In its latest report on the Medical Devices: Regulation & Control, the Standing Committee said, “To invigorate the culture of research and development in medical devices in institutions like IITs, NITs and other academic institutions the Committee recommends the Department to start Research Linked Incentive (RLI) scheme in Line with PLI scheme”.

The Department should facilitate academia- industry partnership for undertaking research projects on industry challenges and incentivize the successful outcomes.

Most of the high-end technology and innovative products originate from a well-developed ecosystem and innovation cycle.

“The Committee is pained to note that despite boasting of several IT hubs like Bengaluru, Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi- NCR the desired ecosystem for manufacturing of highly advanced medical devices is yet to be fully developed in the country,” it said.

“The Committee, therefore, recommends prioritizing and developing a robust funding mechanism to nurture an ecosystem for innovation for the medical devices industry. In this regard, the Committee recommends the Department of Pharmaceuticals to have a dedicated corpus to fund start-ups and Small & Medium Enterprises (SMEs) undertaking research projects that aim for improving quality, efficiency of existing devices and other healthcare outcomes,” it added.

It is of the considered view that in order to encourage indigenous manufacturing, the Government should provide incentives or encourage preferential purchase for domestically manufactured products in government procurement. In this regard, the Department should ensure that in all public procurement, the preference must be given to Indian manufactured medical devices having domestic content of at least 50%.

Given the size of government's (both Central and State) purchase, the Preferential Purchase Agreement would have a significant pull for a number of medical devices companies to manufacture medical devices in India. Also, the PLI scheme should be broad based and all the medical devices should be covered under the scheme.

Biomedical engineers are integral to developing the ecosystem for research in medical devices in India. These engineers are trained in the principles of physics and mathematical computation for the development of safe and effective medical devices that best fit the needs of medical providers and patients.

However, biomedical engineers generally do not interface directly with patients to the same extent as physicians; therefore, biomedical engineers may not fully understand the specific needs of patients in the same way that medical professionals and manufacturers do.

“The Committee, therefore, strongly recommends the Department to facilitate regular interactions of biomedical engineers with leading physicians and manufacturers and thus encourage them to undertake research on medical devices,” said the report.

Moreover, the Committee recommended expediting setting up centers of excellence in medical devices at all the National Institutes of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPERs). The courses may commence in these centers of excellence to train and educate biomedical engineers on ongoing challenges faced by the medical device industry. The Committee also recommended that the government should arrange to provide international exposures to domestic manufactures and to their products. Pharmabiz