KIHT completes one year, winning laurels

Visakhapatnam:  Country’s premier institute for medical devices Kalam Institute of Technology (KIHT), Visakhapatnam, completed one year on Tuesday. Conceived as a research facilitation institution by the former Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India, KIHT was established in Visakhapatnam with a mandate from the Department of Bio-Technology to act as a nodal institute for facilitating focused research on critical components pertaining to medical devices with support from various stakeholder institutions.

During the one year, the KIHT was notified by the office of the PSA as the Project Analysis Unit for all Health Technology Projects in the country. This was preceded by a meeting convened by the PSA at the KIHT campus with a host of country’s leading research and development institutions working on medical technology for taking stock of the status of projects which received government funding in the health technology domain.

In the first year journey, first ever e-Auction for medical technologies launched, 22 technologies identified for technology transfer of intellectual property and prototypes, bringing strategic and coherent synergy of scientific facilities and research institutions with industrial promotion and signed MoU with 12 institutions for technology collaboration and bringing vibrancy into the medical devices fraternity.

The KIHT also launched a pioneer initiative named NIPUN certificate, non-regulatory Innovation Potential Utility and novelty certificate to act as a single point window for all non-regulatory requirements of the medical technology sector and provide a simplified approach to the process of the commercialisation of a product.

“The KIHT also declared as the regional hub for conducting Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. Conducting periodic training sessions and workshops on medical devices and their functionality with hands on session by experts on the actual device itself. Such level of close proximity to actual operating medical devices and in-depth learning has been unprecedented,” said Executive Director of  KIHT Dr Jitendar Sharma said.