AiMED charts India medical devices growth story
Works in tandem with Government of India to combat the COVID-19 crisis
Amidst the COVID-19 crisis, the Association of Indian Medical Device Industry (AiMeD) helped Government of India, a single point of contact access to domestic manufacturers and on behalf of the manufacturers provided 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).
AiMeD worked with QCI to expedite finalisation of ICMED Plus Certification. It also provided online training on quality management system certification to new entrepreneurs from automakers, garments, textile, auto parts industry who ventured into medical devices manufacturing. Four batches of over 115 manufacturers or their representatives were trained over seven modules over 11 sessions over two weeks in April and May 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 crore annual capacity.
The number of Indian 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, according to AiMed.
Rajiv Nath, Forum Coordinator, AiMED said, “COVID-19 crisis has shown that Indian medical devices sector can rise to the challenge. When imports got disrupted, specific devices detailed with quantified production shortages and a focussed inter-ministry group coordinating with domestic manufacturers via AiMeD had been able address production bottlenecks and challenges so that not only capacity got utilised but also ramped up rapidly.”
