NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Monday, July 23, 2018

Social Alpha and Tata Trusts – PATH Impact Lab, today, announced the launch of India’s first nationwide search – ‘Social Alpha Quest for Healthcare Innovations’. The program is designed to solve key healthcare challenges, eliminate disparities, and achieve health equity in India.

The program focuses on healthcare technology innovations in devices and diagnostics including point of care devices in the following areas:

1. a) Innovations in maternal and child health including and not restricted to, areas such as sepsis, maternal diabetes & hypertension
2. b) Innovations chronic and non-communicable diseases such as point-of-care detection of diabetes, neuropathies, retinopathies, cardio-vascular diseases, head & neck cancer, cervical cancer and other cancers
3. c) Innovations in detection and diagnosis of infectious diseases such as malaria, HIV, TB, chikungunya, HCV etc.

Commenting on the program launch, Manoj Kumar, Head of Innovation, Tata Trusts and CEO, Social Alpha, said, “Science and Technology innovations have the potential to create enormous new possibilities and opportunities for solving affordability, accessibility and quality challenges in the healthcare delivery. The Social Alpha Quest for Healthcare Innovations is a step towards supporting the innovative startups in their lab to market journey. Along with our partner PATH, we hope to search and support high impact, high quality yet affordable healthcare solutions and take them to the underserved communities across the world.”

Neeraj Jain, Country Director, PATH Impact Lab, said, “We are pleased to partner with Tata Trusts Social Alpha for ‘Quest for Healthcare’ to bridge significant gaps in adoption and scaling of medtech innovations which would positively impact public health in India and beyond. This program brings together complementary strengths of PATH and Social Alpha as well as our other partners THSTI, Philips and IIT Delhi in providing an optimal mix of support tools to medtech startups at the cusp on exponential growth”

The Social Alpha Quest for Healthcare Innovations program will primarily focus on adoption and scaling of innovative products in order to accelerate development, positively impact public health outcomes and achieve global product standards.  This will be achieved through funding to conduct clinical validation studies along with intensive mentoring and support in business models, regulation, global technologies and market dynamics. Startups that have developed product prototypes and now seeking expertise and financial support for clinical testing and validation will benefit from this program.

The selected startups will be supported by Tata Trusts – PATH Impact Lab and their network of mentors for a period of up to 15 months and will receive the following offerings:

• Funding up to INR 25 lakhs for clinical validation
• Mentorship support in refining business model, navigating regulatory landscape, understanding national & global market dynamics
• Support in product design through access to Social Alpha and Tata Trusts – PATH Impact Lab’s product shop
• Access to PATH’s expertise in design and clinical validation and facilitate access to PHCs/hospitals.
• A 2-3-day Barrel for the founder(s) of selected startups intensively focused on business strategy and growth
• Facilitating engineering and technical support
• Additional grant up to INR 25 lakhs for Design for Manufacturing and Assembly (DFMA) and achieving international product standards
• Opportunities for global exposure visits for advanced training, networking, research support etc.
• Opportunity for dilutive investments by Social Alpha and eligibility to receive support  in raising the next round of funding post meeting eligibility and  diligence requirements

Tata Trusts – PATH Impact Lab was launched in January 2018, a first in India to support and bring to market innovations for affordable and high quality public health solutions to benefit vulnerable populations with limited resources and provide comprehensive support to selected innovators through product design, clinical validation, commercialization and market development.

To apply, please log onto: www.socialalphachallenge.org. Last date to submit applications is August 23^rd, 2018.

Photo courtesy of Andy Miah.