Minister KTR addresses AdvaMed 2016 Conference; showcases India, Telangana as ideal investment destination for MedTech companies

Minister Sri KT Rama Rao said that Telangana has identified Medical Devices as a Strategic Sector for the State’s growth and invited global medical technology majors to visit Hyderabad for assessing the opportunities the country’s 29^th State offers them. Sri KT Rama Rao was delivering his speech at Plenary Session of AdvaMed 2016 – one of the world’s most prestigious Medical Technology Conference, in Minneapolis, Minnesota State as part of his US trip to promote Telangana and attract investments into Pharma, Medical and Healthcare sectors. More than thousand delegates from MedTech sector from across the world attended the Conference.

The Industries and Commerce, IT, MAUD and NRI Affairs Minister began by highlighting the opportunities India offers MedTech companies and then presented the case of Telangana. Hon’ble Minister said, “Given the extraordinary ecosystem of the State for Life Sciences, Healthcare, Information Technology and Engineering talent, the State has identified Medical Devices as a Strategic Sector for the State’s growth. Hence, we are developing a Medical Devices Park, in about 250 acres in phase I and in about 1000 acres in phase II, which will be first of its kind, with focus on innovation, R&D and Manufacturing. Along with Pharma city, spread over 15000 acres and an existing bio-tech park Genome Valley, it creates a most ideal eco-system for any Med Devices company”.

Sri Rama Rao stated that Telangana registered 16% growth rate which is almost double the rate at which India is growing. Delving on the success of Telangana industrial policy – TSiPASS – the Minister said that since the launch of the policy, State Government has accorded approvals to over 2500 units, about half of which are already into commercial production adding that the World Bank gave Telangana top rank in Ease of Doing Business (EODB) index among all Indian States.

The Industries and Commerce Minister also quoted several Surveys like Mercer, National Geographic etc that gave Hyderabad and Telangana top ranks under various segments. The Hyderabad city, Sri Rama Rao said, today is the home to the top most 4 most valued companies in the world viz. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook and 5 of the top 10 with Amazon making it to the list.

Sri KT Rama Rao said that demographic dividend i.e. 54% being below 25 years, and an estimated 62%, being in the working age, readily-employable workforce, rapidly growing economy, huge domestic market will work for MedTech companies looking to expand and invest.

Stating that India imports 80% of its Medical equipment and the medical devices sector is pegged at USD 6.3 bn, Minister was quick to add that the sector is registering a robust CAGR of 15%. Sri Rama Rao said that the sector is expected to touch USD 25 bn by 2025.

Piggybacking on the extensive interactions with industry leaders in the field of medical devices over the last two days, Minister Sri Rama Rao listed some of the concerns of the Industry and how Telangana proposes to address them. In his speech the Minister touched upon regulatory mechanism, pricing and duty structure, issues related to intellectual property rights, tax structure in India among others.

Sri Rama Rao said that the above issues will be taken up with Indian Government wherever necessary and gave the interventions of State Government like Telangana Intellectual Property Crime Unit to enforce IP protection.    

-Press note