NE NEWS SERVICE
AHMEDABAD, JAN 21
Adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet of Things (IoT) offer huge opportunities in healthcare, pharma and manufacturing sectors, an official from industry body NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) said at the seventh edition of NASSCOM Center of Excellence IoT & AI’s flagship healthcare initiative Lifesciences & Healthcare Innovation Forum (LHIF) here on Tuesday.
Nearly 200 delegates attended the forum, which hosted 15 speakers and 6 startups. Keynotes were delivered by eminent government officials in healthcare & industry leaders, including Jaiprakash Shivahare, Commissioner of Health, Govt of Gujarat; Sachin Gusia, Managing Director, Gujarat Informatics Ltd; Samir Desai, President – Biologics, Zydus Cadila; Sunil Parekh, Co-Chairman, FICCI Gujarat State Council and Raghuram Janapareddy, Director – Lifesciences & Healthcare, NASSCOM CoE IoT & AI.
Jaiprakash Shivahare, Commissioner of Health, Govt of Gujarat, said, “We have to be technology-agnostic to explore value, and derive quality from innovators & startups. We want to provide startups equal opportunities to enter the market, and provide the necessary steps to help them develop solutions based on needs and inherent public infrastructure facilities.”
Sachin Gusia, MD, Gujarat Informatics Ltd, added, “Innovation is becoming an integral part of our economy too, and we are working with educational institutions to encourage youngsters to embark on entrepreneurship. Additionally, we’re seeing that applications of technologies like IoT & AI in healthcare are a major focus as well – with innovation-centric approaches to solution development, combined with industry support and collaboration, we want to develop a balanced ecosystem for healthcare.”
There were multiple presentations & panel discussions on digital methods for prevention & control of Non-Communicable Diseases in India; implementation of the National Digital Health Blueprint and how digital transformation is changing the pharma industry today, and opportunities for digital adoption today.
Speakers included Deepak Arora, Director – Market Access & Commercial Excellence, AstraZeneca; Dr Larisa Ramirez, Medical Director – International CVRM, AstraZeneca UK; Dr Seema Nair, Senior Solution Designer, L&T Infotech Ltd; Shanay Shah, Director, Shalby Hospitals & Arvind Sivaramakrishnan, CIO, Apollo Hospitals.
Dr Larisa Ramirez, Medical Director – International CVRM, AstraZeneca UK said, “In UK, the government spends more on preventive health.”
The forum also had startups present their successes in implementing digital technologies in healthcare. Companies that showcased included Niramai, MapMyGenome, Bioscan Research, Janitri Innovations, and Ecolibrium Energy, who discussed their successes in implementing genome mapping, non-invasive thermal imaging breast cancer and IoT-based predictive maintenance for pharmacies.
Raghuram Janapareddy, Director – Lifesciences & Healthcare, NASSCOM CoE IoT & AI, said, “Gujarat state has a well-established industrial & manufacturing ecosystems. In the past few years, the no. of startups with applications in deep technology has been rising rapidly. This presents a great opportunity for collaboration and explores co-creation across industry verticals like pharmaceutical, manufacturing & healthcare. Through LHIF, we want to bring all these ecosystem stakeholders together, facilitate meaningful discussions on the innovation culture and drive tangible innovation projects in healthcare.”
“The LHIF will hold awareness session in major cities of Gujarat every quarter till Vibrant Gujarat 2021. This will help the start-ups to use digital technology to improve the healthcare, pharma and manufacturing sector in the state. With the advancement in IoT and AI, even ASHA workers are scanning 20 to 30 diseases and thus healthcare system is adopting digital tech very fast,” Raghuram added.
Incidentally, NASSCOM launched its first Centre of Excellence in Gujarat last September. The Centre is functioning at IIT Gandhinagar, and supporting the start-up ecosystem.
