Kerala to set up medical enterprises to venture out into equipment manufacturing field

Thiruvananthapuram: The industries department will step into medical enterprises and start-ups as it has completed the initiative to set up one lakh enterprises. In March, the government launched an initiative to set up one lakh Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) within one year.

However, it is not easy to set up enterprises in the medical equipment manufacturing field. The department has decided to study the medical equipment industries in seven other countries and to create a Kerala model of the same.

Micro start-up ventures would be set up in Kerala similar to that in Israel after forming medical clusters.

A team of officials from Kerala, who visited the world’s biggest medical expo in Germany, held discussions with the representatives of several countries. The officials had meetings with government representatives and medical companies from Germany, Britain, Netherlands, Japan and South Korea.

All nations except Korea expressed willingness to invest. They will visit in Kerala in the coming months. An action plan has been prepared to strengthen the medical industry ecosystem before the visits. This action plan has been handed over to the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC).

The cluster connecting universities, research institutes, medical industries sector and hospitals would be set up under the Thiruvananthapuram Life Science Park. The Kerala Medical Technology Consortium will be incharge of the same.