Telangana Governor Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan has underscored the need for taking healthtech, particularly innovations by startups that promise to cut down time and cost of the procedures, to rural populace and the economically weak in order to help improve healthcare access for them.
“Poorest of poor, rural people, must benefit from innovations,” she said presenting awards to five startups at the valedictory function of the two-day BioAsia 2024 conference and exhibition, the 21st in the annual series, in Hyderabad on February 28 (Wednesday).
Noting that lack of awareness about tests such as ultrasound scan and user costs came in the way of many in need from accessing them as well as depriving them of benefits associated with early diagnosis, the Governor said, “as a doctor I know the problems faced by people. An ultrasound (scan) on time helps identify issues early, but some (patients) do not get it done, as they are not aware of its importance or due to lack money.”
Modern diagnostic tools should reach rural areas to help promote preventive healthcare and reduce disease burden, Dr. Tamilisai Soundararajan said, highlighting the need for more innovations and inventions in healthcare space. Emerging technologies such as AI help in early diagnose and consequently, treatment, she added.
On BioAsia, she said the Telangana government’s premier event focused on life sciences has become more mature to support entrepreneurs. Congratulating the award-winning startups, Industries and IT Minister D. Sridhar Babu said BioAsia 2024 received more than 2,000 delegates, 200 exhibitors and facilitated 2,800 B2B meetings.
The five startups that received the awards included UR Advanced Therapeutics, Zedblox Logitech, Descign AI, Lamark Biotech and Plebc Innovations. UR Advanced Therapeutics works on biomaterials for tissue engineering, with a focus on endo regenerative cornea.
Zedblox’s ActiPod paves the way for unbreakable cold chain solutions in healthcare, while Descign is an AI enabled digitalisation platform for life sciences and healthcare. Plebc Innovations is developing a teleoperated robotic ultrasound system improving access in rural areas by eliminating the need of physical presence of a radiologist. Lamark Biotech is a start-up focused on life saving medicines accessible globally.
UR Advanced Therapeutics, in a release, said that with tissue engineering, the focus is on designing extra cellular matrix to regenerate tissues. The company is developing implants that regenerate entire three layers of cornea using one’s own stem cells that are present in the body.
Presently, available technologies that are in clinical trial stages uses the matrix from human cadaveric tissues, and thus, will have rejections and risk of transmission of diseases. This novel technology, first of its kind, do not cause any rejections, and since synthesized in the lab, can be scalable with consistent quality. This solves the scarcity of the available donor corneas that only one in 70 people have access to globally.
CEO Jaganmohan Reddy said that the firm started its journey in 2020 out of incubation centre ASPIRE-BioNEST, School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad and went on to grow manifold, establishing its own integrated R&D facility with AI-driven bioinformatics, peptide synthesis, purification and analysis, BSL2-level facility of stem cell, organoid and lenti and adenoviral systems.
