The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) - Ahmedabad, one of the six new NIPERs established in different parts of the country, is planning to initiate courses to develop human resources to enhance the performance of medical devices industry in the country. The institute will be one of the first to introduce a dedicated course for medical devices technology, according to NIPER sources.

The institute, which is expected to commence operations in next couple of months, has identified the scope of emerging medical devices segment in the country and has plans to set up operations in three specific segments to help the industry. The identified segments are - setting up academic centres, establishing a testing facility for medical devices with testing equipments, testing models for efficacy and quality control studies and building up pre-clinical and clinical study facilities required for medical devices (class 2B and III) for the industry.

The institute has recently conducted analysis on the sector to identify the prospects of medical devices industry and need for human resources. The draft report has been submitted to the Department of Pharmaceuticals and the department is seeking feedback from the industry on the report.

Based on the feedback the institute will submit its final report to the department which, in turn, is expected to offer additional funds to set up the infrastructure at Ahmedabad to support the medical devices industry, informed Dr Harish Padh, project director, NIPER-Ahmedabad and director, B V Patel Pharmaceutical Education and Research Development (PERD) Centre.

"As one of the six NIPERs set up in various parts of the country, we wanted to start something unique and useful for the growth of the industry. The Indian medical devices sector comprises of a large number of small and medium scale companies. We have to support them with trained manpower and infrastructure," said Dr Padh. The institute is expected to commence operation in a couple of months.

The draft analysis report reveals that there are no dedicated academic courses either short term or long term available in India for providing focussed education in medical devices. The only courses which may provide some basic knowledge in either engineering or biomedical aspect of medical devices are bioengineering graduate course in BITS, Pilani and various technical, biomedical engineering, biomedical technology, instrumentation & control courses by various engineering colleges and universities.

Even as the products manufactured by the Indian medical devices companies are at par with the imported products, a serious lacuna in terms of skilled manpower in the various aspects of the industry is an issue on which the government has to look into, says the report.

The institute will be functioning in the PERD centre premises for the first two to three years and will eventually shift its operations to its own premises in Gandhi Nagar, Ahmedabad. The PERD centre has an agreement with the central government to run the institute for the first 10 years of establishment.