Kalam Institute of Health Technology (KIHT), promoted by the Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, to facilitate focussed research on critical components pertaining to medical devices at the AP MedTech Zone (AMTZ), India’s largest medical devices manufacturing park near here, will collaborate with Joanna Briggs Institute (JBI), University of Adelaide, as an affiliated group.
AMTZ, now under construction in an area of 270 acres at Nadupuru in Pedagantyada mandal near here, is expected to roll out the first device manufactured in the zone under ‘Make in India’ initiative sometime in October.
Common scientific facilities, biomaterial testing lab, 3D design, prototyping, rapid tooling facility, gamma irradiation, X-ray/CT scan tube manufacturing and other facilities will come up at the zone.
One-stop solution
The zone, an ultra-modern medical equipment manufacturing and testing park, is expected to provide one-stop solution, reduce cost of production by 40% and simplify end-to-end operations and enable achieving import dependency for medical devices and components.
The first phase is at an advance stage of construction at a cost of ₹350 crore to ₹400 crore. It has been decided to spend about ₹1,000 crore on various facilities by the time it is ready for full-fledged operations.
Joanna Briggs Collaboration (JBC) is a key body that contributes to the global success of the JBI with respect to scholarly outputs and geographic footprint. The JBC has grown exponentially over past 20 years. It now incorporates over 80 entities internationally across five regions.
KIHT will focus on medical devices and diagnostic and associate with other JBI centres in the domain of research. All the studies made in this space will be submitted to the JBI and the KIHT is expected to involve in supporting and leading JBI in medical devices and diagnostic space globally. Official sources told The Hindu that AMTZ will now host the JBI along with cluster of 250 manufacturing units for common facilities such as electro-magnetic interference testing, biomaterials testing, gamma irradiation, rapid prototyping centre, Indian Biomedical Skill Consortium, WHO pre-qualified cell, Directorate of Radiation and Medical Devices Promotion Council.
