The National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Ahmedabad, is all set to launch India's first dedicated course in medical devices segment from the new academic year starting from July, 2010. The institute is currently in talks with some of the major educational institutes conducting similar courses in the country for expert opinion and will finalise the curriculum soon, senior officials of the institute said.

The NIPER Ahmedabad, housed in the reputed institute B V Patel Pharmaceutical Education and Research Development (PERD) Centre, will offer a post graduate diploma course on the medical devices segment from the academic year 2010-11, focusing on multidisciplinary curriculum covering mechanics, engineering, pharmacology and medical aspects of the segment, said Dr Harish Padh, project director, NIPER-Ahmedabad and director, B V Patel PERD Centre.

"We are in talks with other major institutes like the Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences & Technology, Thiruvananthapuram and Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai, which are offering the sector-related training. We are finalising collaborations with these institutes so that we can offer training on other areas in the sector which are not covered by them. We expect to finalise the MoUs (memorandum of understandings) in a couple of weeks," said Dr Padh.

With a post graduate diploma course started this year, the institute has also plans to offer a graduate course in medical devices sector at a later stage. With the sector specific infrastructure is still under development, the first batch of the PG diploma course will have a strength of around 20 seats initially, he said. A feasibility report prepared by NIPER Ahmedabad, last year, 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. It is based on this report the institute came up with its project to initiate courses to develop human resources to enhance the performance of medical devices industry in the country.

NIPER-Ahmedabad, which has commenced its operations from the academic year 2007-08, is also planning to launch its first doctoral programme, offering PhDs in the three areas - Biotechnology, Natural Products and Pharmaceutics - from the academic year 2010 with nine seats for the first few years for the course.

At present, institutes like LM College of Pharmacy, Ahmedabad and the Baroda College of Pharmacy offer doctoral courses in state level. The NIPER regional institute will be offering courses in national level and will increase the number of seats from nine to 15 in next four years. The setting up a dedicated campus for NIPER in Gandhinagar, Gujarat, is also in the offing, said Dr Padh.