Start-ups develop tech to save babies' lives

Hyderabad: The Indian Institute of Technology-Hyderabad-incubated start-ups have developed healthcare technologies to save the lives of the babies and help bed-bound individuals. The second batch of fellows graduating from the Centre for Healthcare Entrepreneurship (CfHE), IIT-Hyderabad, have formed two start-ups and met a jury panel to pitch their ideas during “Second Graduation Pitch Day 2018” held on Wednesday. 

The jury panel includes top investors in healthcare area, leading healthcare practitioners from hospital networks, including Kamineni and Asian Institute of Gastroenterology and academics, including lead advisers from Stanford University.

HEAMAC Healthcare Pvt. Ltd, which aims to solve unidentified pressing needs in neonatal and maternal care, has developed a product to help infants suffering from physiological jaundice. Kvayat Medical developed a product on faecal management system to assist bed-bound individuals and enabling them to lead life with dignity.

Both start-ups were involved in lengthy clinical immersions over several months at leading hospitals to assess the unmet needs in the medical fraternity. They have gathered positive feedback on their proposed solutions. Nearly 13 million infants per year are unable to process bilirubin quickly enough and require jaundice treatment to prevent death or lifelong disability. 

Even though the cure is simple and this condition preventable, existing solutions are unable to address jaundice of different severities resulting in extended therapy time and morbidity. HEAMAC Health-care has developed a device that provides graded phototherapy so that babies suffering from physiological jaundice get sufficient illumination.

Professor U.B. Desai, director, IIT-Hyderabad, said, “The Institute is proud to incubate start-ups that are coming up with products that will have a huge impact on society. We are sure their ideas will have a lot of traction with Indian healthcare community. We look forward to more start-ups coming up with novel products from the upcoming CfHE batches.”

The “Second Graduation Pitch Day 2018” is a platform to showcase the work of graduating CfHE Fellows and young entrepreneurs from IIT Hyderabad using a Pitch-to-Investor format.