New Delhi [India] October 1 (ANI/NewsVoir): As India geared up to fight the COVID-19 crisis, the Association of Indian Medical device industry relentlessly worked at the forefront to combat the crisis. Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, AiMED on the behalf of the Indian medical device industry was in regular consultation with the Govtassured Commerce Minister, Piyush GoyalGovt full support to the Govt's spirited fight against the COVID-19 crisis.

Huge efforts were put into increase medical device manufacturing capacity by AiMeD through its members and beyond by reaching out to garment manufacturers, automakers, auto component manufacturers, and electronic component manufacturers as preparedness for possible unprecedented, unpredictable demands.

AiMeD is an umbrella Association of Indian Manufacturers of Medical Devices covering all types of Medical devices including consumables, disposables, equipment, instruments, electronics, diagnostics, and implants.

With a primary membership of over 350 manufacturers and additionally of over 200 Associate Members representing the interest of over 1200 Manufacturers of Medical devices, however, with over 2000 products AiMeD should be over 7000 factories and bigger than Pharma to address the manufacturer's problems.

Rajiv Nath recognized that the government interventions under the able leadership of Cabinet Secretary, Rajiv Gauba, and DOP Secretary, Dr PD Vaghela helped the Medical devices industry scale up production during the pandemic.

AiMeD worked closely with Govt of India i.e. Dept of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Commerce, NPPACDSCO, etc. as a Facilitator between the Govt and the Manufacturers of Medical Devices e.g. gloves, masks, sanitizers, ventilators, diagnostictesting kits for COVID-19, etc. for ramping up capacity and addressing production bottlenecks in this national emergency to fight against COVID-19 pandemic during the complete lockdown period.

AiMeD provided the Indian Govt, a single point of contact access to domestic manufacturers and on behalf of manufacturers provided them various services like advocacy on policy issues, information services, regulations for medical devices, education and training services, testing assistance, and guidance for quality certification (ISO, CE, ICMED QMS), lobbying for funding for RD from the Govt, encourage innovations from member units, Improve clinician and patient access to the modern, innovative and reliable medical device technologies through organizing and supporting meetings, seminars, symposia, exhibitions, and demonstration, to promote global harmonization and make India a MedTech superpoweralso strengthen India to be the second factory in the world for medical devicesa dependable manufacturer of quality products in the global supply chain.

The Government of India through its flagship "Make in India" initiative relied heavily on the Indian manufacturers to meet the rising demand of essential healthcare equipment's for the country, pushing the Indian medical devices sector to become self-reliant especially for the essential 39 COVID medical devices.

AiMeD worked with QCI to expedite finalization of ICMED Plus Certification as well as with consultants consortium to provide online training on Quality Management System Certification to new entrepreneurs from automakers, garments, textile, auto parts industry who had ventured into medical devices manufacturing to build capacitycapabilities to meet QCIs ICMED certification and regulatory compliance so that they could have the confidence to seek global certification of CE and US FDA Compliance for enabling global competitiveness.

Four batches of over 115 Manufacturers or their representatives have intensely trained over seven modules over 11 sessions spread over 2 weeks in AprilMay 2020.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, there were only 20 firms manufacturing 62 lakhs PPE kits per year, but within two-three months, the number of manufacturers listed with AiMeD increased to 140 with 25.55 crores annual capacity.

Similarly, the number of Indian firms manufacturing, ventilator manufacturers went up from 8 to 17, mask manufacturers from 30 to 108, swab manufacturers from zero to five, and sanitizer manufacturers from 35 to 49, and RT PCR Kit manufacturer from 0 to 8.

Find the comparison sheet of the growth rate beforeafter COVID-19 with an annual capacity below:AiMeD1_oct1.jpgAiMeD ensures convergence at one common platform, when needed, for ensuring the overall growth of the Indian medical devices industry and further address the needs of all members of the medical device industry irrespective of their affiliation or their company size. It also helps in the wider dissemination of information to each player in the industry.

AiMeD has been horizontally divided into common working groups like - RD and product development, legaltax issues, export-related issues, medical device regulatory issues common to all vertical groups of different families of product lines with zonal representations and cluster heads.

"COVID-19 crisis has shown that the Indian medical devices sector can rise to the challenge. When imports got disrupted, specific devices detailed with quantified production shortages and a focused Inter-Ministry Group coordinating with domestic manufacturers via AiMeD had addressed production bottlenecks and challenges so that not only capacity got utilized but also ramped up rapidly," said Rajiv Nath.

Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator of the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) is also the Board Member of Kalam Institute of Healthcare TechnologyMember National Medical Device Promotion CouncilEx-Chairman IPC Committee on Medical Device StandardChairman - Technical Committee - ICMED Certification by QCI as well as Member of Expert Advisory Group (EAG) for Biomedical Device and Technology Development (BDTD) by Dept of ScienceTechnologyMember of Medical Devices - Expert Advisory Group to CDSCO for Regulation in India. He also serves as Advisor to Haryana Govt and to UP Govt for their forthcoming Medical Device Park.

Rajiv Nath is also the Managing Director of Hindustan SyringesMedical Devices Ltd; Trustee - Safe Point India - a CSR Initiative of HMD (Hindustan SyringesMedical Devices Ltd) He is also the President of All India Syringes and Needles Manufacturers Association (AISNMA).

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