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President Kalam inaugurates his 'dream' medical project' Relisys Medical Devices' Asias's First Catheter and stent manufacturing facility and R&D Division to produce various types of quality catheters and coronary stents at substantially lower prices
Hyderabad, June 29...The stent is such a medical device which is indeed a highly competitiveness product for a great societal mission. I was studying the development patterns and the developing countries. Dynamics of connectivity between nations, especially in trade and business. As you all know the world has few developed countries and many developing countries. The Dynamics between and what connects them is to remain competitive and market products where there is more competition. Competitiveness is the common driving factor between these two types of nations. The competitiveness has three dimensions: quality of the product, cost effectiveness and keeping the product just in time said Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, President of India addressing immediately after inaugurating the Relisys Medical Devices' Asias's First Catheter Manufacturing and R&D facility here in city outskirts near Ibrahimpatnam today morning.
Speaking further he added that Innovation is the capital that promotes competitiveness of the country. For a country like India with huge untapped market potential in health care products, innovative methods of making the state of the art products available at affordable costs for different segments of society call for unique strategies. Referring the recent study on the Global Competitiveness Report for the year 2006-2007, he said Switzerland found to be in a first rank in terms of Growth Competitiveness. Countries like Finland, Singapore, US and Korea ranked 2, 5, 6, 24 respectively. India stood at 43rd rank. I am glad to find the India has moved up in competitiveness to 43.
Sometime back, the President of Finland, Her Excellency Mrs. Tarja Halonen, visited Rashtrapati Bhavan. During the discussion, I asked the President of Finland, what is the significance and how Finland is always in the first few positions in the competitiveness index during the last few years. She gave three reasons: (1). Education, Education, Education – it is the foundation for the Finland's Competitiveness, (2). Life Long learning is promoted in Finland – people continuously are in learning mode, (3). Women are empowered with Education. Of course we have similar experience in the country, wherever we have empowered the women with education, they have excelled in Human Development Index. Growth competitiveness is determined by the innovative ability of any institution or organization. This innovation arises from institutional initiative and the R & D productivity of the firm. Innovation is the prime mover for engineering design, engineering development, value addition and production, President said.
The President hoped that the stents and other medical devices manufactured by Relisys Medical Devices Ltd will be comparable to the imported stents though its cost is much lower. Continuous technology flow on manufacturing, continuous improvement of design inputs from cardiologists and patients are important factors for improving competitiveness in the market. And told them to be the number one stent manufacturer in the world.
Concluding his address he said. "Today, research in stents has to be to compare different types of DES, and also between the newer kinds of drug combinations to be coated on stents to find a solution to the problem of late stent thrombosis. The ideal stent should be completely inert, not activate the clotting system and will disappear after a given period. Is it possible? You can experts can make it possible."
Earlier addressing the gathering the Chief Mentor of Relisys Medical Devices, a noted Cardiologist who along with Dr. Abdul Kalam invented the first indigenous Coronary Stent "Kalam-Raju-Stent in 1988 said we are committed always to deliver reliable products to society. The Kalam-Raju-Stent was jointly developed by DRDO and Care Group.
On arrival Dr. Kalam went around the plant which is being set up with an investment of Rs 30 crore and interacted with the scientists there. He congratulated them.
Welcoming the gathering Dr. N. Krishna Reddy, Chairman of Relisys Medical Devices said the facility is made ready as per the global GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) standards and has a R&D unit, Catheter manufacturing and Stent development unit. Further he said, the motto of the company is to develop global quality products at local costs. Adding further he said Catheters used in various angiographic procedures in Radiology and Cardiology are currently being imported at a very high cost. These are imported from US and Europe. Now once our production commences, we can not only produce globally competitive devices, but also will be able to offer the same to domestic consumers at a very affordable cost. Thus we can save much valuable foreign exchange. We can even export the same at a very competitive rates.
According to Mr. N. G. Badrinarayana, Managing Director of Relisys Medical Devices Limited, approximately 6 lakh angiographic procedures are done every month in India. In which the cost of the Catheters is put at Rs 4000/-. Thus the plant saves lot of foreign exchange as well.
Since its first marketed product, Kalam-Raju Stent, company's dedicated research team has come up with many technologically advanced products focusing on Cardiology disposables and Catheters. The Cardiac Product Range include Drug Eluting Stents, Cobalt Chromium Stents, Bare Stents and Mounted Stents, Vascular Access Needles, Pressure Monitoring Lines, High Pressure Contract Injection Lines and PTCA Balloon Catheters.
The facility has come up at an area of 7 acres and has one lakh sq. ft build up area including 20,000 sq. ft. Class 10K Clean Room facility for the purpose of production. It also has a separate R&D wing to include Radioisotope, Cell Culture, Analytical, metallurgical and Design Laboratories in line with product development activities in a built up area of 10,000 sq. ft.. The plans are also on the anvil to develop new stent materials, which will be bioresorble and vascular friendly.
The company will be working out new materials like nitinol, magnesium for stent applications. This would be possible with the current infrastructure available like laser cutting, annealing and metallurgical lab and drug evaluation labs. The company is also planning to forge collaborative projects with ARCI and IITs.
The inaugural function was graced among other three hundred guests include Minister of BC Welfare, Govt. of A.P Mr. Mukesh Goud.
Issued for and on behalf of Relisys Medical Devices by:
D.Ramchandram, Solus Media, Tel: +91-40-23230750 / 23241484 Mobile: 98480-42020
Solus Media