A FRESH BREATH OF INNOVATION

Never has a need been felt more acutely than for locally manufactured ventilators and medical equipment during the recent devastating second wave of the coronavirus pandemic. While local manufacturers are now rising up to the challenge, Dr Sudhir Waghmare has been at the forefront of innovating and indigenously manufacturing medical equipment for over three decades now. As the founder of Shreeyash Electro Medicals, a Pune-based company, that specialises in the manufacturing of a range of ventilator products, he has been the poster boy for Indian innovation. In the words of Dr Waghmare, “It is a great idea that gives birth to an innovation, not necessarily higher educational degrees, you have to be a believer first, only then can you become an achiever”.

Shreeyash has a rich legacy of producing world standard life-saving equipment, but at a fraction of the cost of its international competition. While Shreeyash primarily focuses on the development of ventilators and incubators for new-born babies, Dr Waghmare rose up to the challenge posed by the rising Covid-19 threat across the country and invented an indigenously developed ventilator device that helped save thousands of lives across India. Not only this, but the high-end ventilator is priced 70% cheaper than any other imported brand, ensuring that it was affordable to smaller healthcare facilities across the length and breadth of the country. Dr Waghmare talks to Corporate Citizen about his humble upbringing, the 30-year legacy of Shreeyash Electro Medicals, and why local innovation has tremendous scope for success

"I was born into a middle-class family but somehow right from my 12th standard, I was not interested in working under anybody. I always have felt that I should do something of my own. I always believed that I should start my own business"

Corporate Citizen: You started Shreeyash Electro Medicals in 1991. For someone who didn’t have a medical background, how did you manage to market medical devices to healthcare personnel?

Dr Sudhir Waghmare: Around that period of 1991-92, all the equipment was imported. When I made my incubator, I designed it in the style of a Switzerland made incubator, which costed as much as 4-5 lakhs. I designed my incubator and sold it for a few thousand. By pricing it so low, I got my foot in the door. To market this incubator, I used to visit doctors. Normally, doctors are sceptical of people from non-medical backgrounds who try to see their medical equipment. This is because most salesmen are not able to answer the technical and clinical queries of the doctors. As I myself had designed and made the incubators, I knew every technicality about its workings. When I pitched it to them, they used to be intrigued because I knew the technicalities as well as the clinical terminologies. Even before making the incubator, I dove into the subject in-depth and understood what exactly is the use of an incubator, and how exactly does it help a baby. This deep understanding of the incubator’s workings and my clinical knowledge helped me gain the confidence of the doctors. They began to understand that this is a man who knows what he is talking about, who has done his homework, and isn’t someone who is just pushing a product that may not be up to standard. After doctors started trusting me, my products gained acceptance and gradually they became more and more popular. Once the ball started rolling, then there was no looking back.

CC: Your indigenously developed ventilator device, Shreeyash 900, specifically designed to address the Covid-19, has helped to save thousands of lives across more than 500 hospitals in India, and at a fraction of the cost.

There is a short story behind the invention of that ventilator. In 2017, I patented a new device. Unfortunately, after that, I contracted a deadly disease and was hospitalised for a year and a half. But after that, I went to America. I am possibly the only manufacturer who has exported medical equipment to the US. Medical equipment is usually imported from the US by India. The equipment that I exported to the US was a Human Milk Pasteuriser called Kimie, which I will tell you in detail later.

After coming from America, I went to Sri Lanka as there was a need for my products at that time. In March 2020, I returned to India, and within just a few days, the entire nation went into a lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. From the next day after the lockdown was enacted, I started receiving calls from eminent scientists and government officials and industrial houses requesting me to manufacture ventilators. Initially, I wasn’t all that interested in manufacturing adult ventilators because that is not my specialisation. I believe in sticking to one’s strengths. My forte is manufacturing life-saving equipment for newborn babies. Historically, I did not manufacture any products for adults. However, after receiving numerous calls from so many prominent people, I decided to explore the idea. It will be very ungrateful on my part if I do not mention the help by Mr Prakashji Chabriya, MD, Finolex Industries, who not only kept me motivating but even offered financial help to manufacture adult ventilators.

Around that time, I started reading in the news that there was a severe shortage of ventilators in India. People were dying by the hundreds. Another problem that I discovered then was that countries like America had banned the export of ventilators temporarily, in order to meet their domestic requirements, and there were no Indian manufacturers who could make sufficient ventilators to match the rapidly growing demand. That is when I took up the matter seriously and started the process to manufacture adult ventilators. As I already had the experience of ventilator manufacturing, having started manufacturing ventilators for newborn babies since 2004, it was not that difficult a transition. In fact, ventilators for newborn babies require more accuracy than adult ventilators because there is very little margin for error when it comes to newborn children. We put this expertise to use and started manufacturing adult ventilators.

Incidentally, around that time, Marico Innovation Foundation announced their Innovate2BeatCovid challenge in response to the growing Covid-19 threat in the country, where the companies would compete in building sustainable, cost-effective and ‘built-for-India’ innovations. The winner would receive a financial grant from the foundation to manufacture the winning product which would contribute to the fight against Covid-19. I am proud to say that our ventilator, the Shreeyash 900, was awarded the first prize in this contest along with a grant for Rs.43.5 lakhs. The device is a volume and pressure-controlled ventilator with different modes of ventilation to treat the patient suffering from various lung diseases. We started manufacturing the Shreeyash 900 on a modest scale but now we are supplying it all over India. The best part about our ventilator is that it is 65-70% cheaper than the imported ventilators. But make no mistake, just because it is economical does not mean that we have in any way compromised on its quality. It has all the features and facilities that any international ventilator can provide but at a fraction of the cost.

"I am proud to say that our ventilator, the Shreeyash 900, was awarded the first prize in Marico Innovation Foundation’s Innovate2BeatCovid challenge along with a grant for Rs.43.5 lakhs"

Technician at work at the Shreeyash manufacturing facility in Pune

CC: Tell us about your early life and education.

I grew up in a middle-class family. When I completed my 10th standard, I secured admission for a Polytechnic Diploma. However, I wanted the electrical engineering stream but was unable to secure admission there. Instead, I managed to get admission to civil engineering. To be honest, I was not at all interested in that field. I thought that perhaps I should take a break for a year and try again next year for my desired stream by scoring better marks on the second attempt. But my father advised me against it. He felt that I shouldn’t waste a productive year of my life. If I wanted to try to get admission into electrical engineering I could certainly try next year, but in the meantime, he advised me to take admission in the commerce or science stream in the 11th standard so that I would have something to fall back on in case I didn’t make it on the second attempt as well. I followed his advice and took admission in the 11th standard in the commerce stream. Even then, my passion for electrical engineering stayed with me. Throughout the year, I continuously followed up on the developments in electrical engineering. I read numerous books about the subject. On the other hand, I was least interested in the commerce syllabus, which I had reluctantly enrolled for. I didn’t even know what a balance sheet was. I was absolutely poor in all the commerce subjects. However, I was really good at my knowledge of electrical engineering.

CC: You come from a middle-class background. Your father was a government employee. How has the modest upbringing impacted your life choices?

I was born into a middleclass family but somehow right from my 12th standard, I was not interested in working under anybody. I always have felt that I should do something of my own. I always believed that I should start my own business. So in a way, right from day one, it was my motive to not work for anybody. Fortunately, by God’s grace, I have never worked for anybody to date. I started from scratch, and whatever I have, I have built on the back of my hard work.

CC: How did you foray into manufacturing medical devices?

I had a great passion for electrical engineering. I decided to put that knowledge to some practical use, and I started manufacturing electric heating pads. Now bear in mind that this was way back in 1982. At that time, the heating pads used in India were quite rudimentary. In most cases, people would fill rubber bags with hot water and use it as a heating pad. I was one of the first to come out with electric heating pads and I started selling those. I did not know what kind of response I would get for my experiment but I felt that I should at least try. To my amazement, the heating pads received a tremendous response from people. You will find it hard to believe but I sold thousands and thousands of heating pads. So overwhelming was the response, that I continued selling them all through my first, second and third year in college. During this phase, I used to go to orthopaedic hospitals because orthopaedic patients are primarily the ones who can benefit from the use of heating pads. During one of these visits, I met a gynaecologist called Dr Sanjay Gupte who suggested that I could try to also manufacture incubators. At that time, being a commerce student with an interest in electrical engineering and absolutely no background in medicine, I had no idea what an incubator was. But his suggestion did manage to intrigue me. I decided to read up on what an incubator was and what functions it could perform. Studying up on a new topic then was vastly different from what it is now. There was no internet or Google back then to give on the spot answers. Finding information and more importantly, the correct information was not an easy task at all. I went up to paediatricians and asked them what an incubator was. They explained what it was and what it did. Fortunately, one of them gave me a catalogue to see the incubators that were available in the market. I studied the catalogue in detail, and on solely studying the catalogue and with no other assistance, I designed my own incubator. This was way back in 1989. I took a lot of trials to ensure that the product met high standards, and that is how I forayed into the manufacturing of medical devices. I gradually scaled up my business and in 1991, I started manufacturing neo-natal life saving devices and eventually scaled up to manufacturing neonatal and adult ventilators.

CC: How did you understand medical terminology since you did not have a medical education?

When I started manufacturing medical equipment, I had no medical background as such. Everything I learnt was from books and from the people I encountered who had medical backgrounds. I read a lot of books and stumbled upon several words which I was not able to understand. So, I asked my friends who had medical backgrounds, and gradually, I started understanding these terms. If I came across a word or medical term which I couldn’t understand I referred to a medical dictionary to find its meaning and that’s how it started and how Shreeyash Electro Medicals was established in 1991.

"Ventilators for babies require more accuracy because there is very little margin for error when it comes to newborn children. We put this expertise to use and started manufacturing adult ventilators"

CC: You have manufactured over a dozen different products. Which is the product closest to your heart?

I would like to talk about two of our products which are very close to my heart. The first product is a high-frequency oscillatory ventilator called Dragonfly. This kind of ventilator is historically manufactured only in America. It is now manufactured in India by me. It gives a respiratory rate of 900 breaths per minute. To put that into context, normally, the respiratory rate of an new- born baby is anywhere between 40-60 beats per minute. Here, in the case of the Dragonfly, which is a high-frequency oscillator, where the baby is breathing at 40 beats per minute, we are giving him a breathing rate of 900 breaths per minute. This is a very interesting product that I am quite proud of and it has helped in saving the lives of thousands of new-born babies across the globe.

I would like to tell you about another product. When a mother delivers her baby, she may not be able to sufficiently feed the baby for the first three days. During this stage, the doctors provide formula milk to the baby. However, research has shown that formula milk is not healthy for a newborn baby. Scientists have proved that the chemicals in the milk formula are not good for the overall physical and mental development of the baby. So, what then is the solution in this case? The best solution is to give human milk to the baby. However, you cannot just do that without screening the donor mother in regards to diseases like diabetes, HIV or any potential diseases which could potentially be transmitted to the receiving baby. So, you have to first screen the mother for these diseases and then collect and pasteurise the milk before you administer it to the receiving baby. This process requires a specialised machine.

At Shreeyash, we innovated a way to do this process in a very efficient manner that too by only using a very small machine called Kimie. This machine or mini-pasteuriser does not require any special electrical or plumbing connections. It can work on a regular electrical connection. An in-built heating system ensures that the milk is warmed to 62.5 C, killing the harmful bacteria in the milk. Once the milk is warmed, the microprocessor will ensure that the milk temp will be maintained to 62.5 C for 30 minutes, after which, the in-built cooling system rapidly cools the milk to 4 degrees C, which ensures that there is no re-growth of bacteria. Once the hold time is over, the cooling system will automatically take over the cycle. The best part is that one pasteurisation cycle will not cost more than a few paise. Even in the US where we exported the machine, one pasteurisation cycle only cost 8 cents. As you can see, the cost of operation is very low.

If you were to import a machine to do this same task it would cost you around Rs.35 lakh. But we are selling our equipment for only Rs.8 lakh. This machine has a lot of significance for the baby’s development. If you give human milk to human babies, the baby’s immune system improves. The baby becomes stronger and it also affects its brain development, making the baby more intelligent. This is what even medical science says. A research paper written by Dr Uday Devaskar (USA) and his team on Kimie is published in an American medical journal and now several doctors from countries such as America, Australia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Estonia are using our human milk pasteuriser, Kimie.

Recently, a multinational company realised that there is a huge profit margin in this business. They have started collecting milk from mothers, begun pasteurising it and turning it into a powder, and have started selling it in 10 gram sachets. They are pricing a single sachet at Rs.230. This means 1ml of milk costs Rs.23. This is extremely costly. On the other hand, using our equipment, the pasteurising cost is 1 paisa and all other expenses are at most a few more paise. Using this machine, the milk can even be distributed free of cost to needy babies. That is how economical and beneficial Kimie is.

CC: How has Covid-19 impacted the demand for your products?

Since the covid-19 pandemic hit, the demand for our neo-natal products, especially baby incubators, has gone down. But the demand for neonatal and adult ventilators has gone conversely gone up.

"I feel we have a great need for local innovators here in India. If you have an idea, you must put it to the test. There is a lot of scope for potential innovators and budding entrepreneurs"

CC: You have been manufacturing locally for decades. After the push for Aatmanirbhar Bharat which the PM advocated for last year, have you seen any incentives for local manufacturers and innovators like you?

Dr Sudhir Waghmare with his team

There have been quite a few incentives announced but we have not availed any as of yet. I was approached with offers to increase cash-credit limit and loans, but I was told that interest won’t be charged only for one year, and post that year it would be charged at a specific rate. That did not make much financial sense to me, so chose not to avail it. That being said, there have been some good decisions taken, like the government has reduced the GST on ventilators to 5% from the earlier taxable rate of 12%, as well as on some other medical products. On the flip side, the government has also reduced excise duty on imported ventilators from 28% to 5%. So, now that the import duty is reduced, it will help reduce the prices of imported ventilators, which will make it tougher for indigenous manufacturers like Shreeyash. This will help the multinational giants who can now more aggressively market their ventilators at lower prices.

CC: Are you able to strike a work-life balance?

I used to have a lot of spare time earlier on. I used to listen to music, but now it is difficult to find time to relax.

CC: What message would you give to budding entrepreneurs and innovators much like yourself who have great ideas but are looking at an unprecedented challenge in a post-Covid world?

I feel we have a great need for local innovators here in India. There is a lot of equipment for which we rely heavily on European and American manufacturers. All we need is someone to step up with a great idea and make those products locally. There is so much to scope to innovate and manufacture products locally. I have the capacity to make 13-15 products. I cannot make more than that. But someone else certainly could. Let me tell you about an incident.

I had an idea of manufacturing a few products like the rail system required in hospitals, a scientific air purifier etc. But as I was engrossed in my own production, I didn’t had the time to manufacture it. Hence, I shared the idea with two of my relatives who at that time were working in a company. The products that I had in my mind were a medical rail system and an air purifier that purifies the air in a very scientific manner, not like the commercial air purifiers we see in the market. I had so much confidence in the product so I insisted that my relatives resign from their job and start their own manufacturing units. Both were initially hesitant but I managed to pique their interest. They listened to me and took the risk. They have hit the jackpot. Today, they own a fleet of cars and are staying in luxurious houses and are earning in crores.

If you have an idea, you must put it to the test. There is a lot of scope for potential innovators and budding entrepreneurs.