Needs-based health technology innovation for India: Opportunities and Challenges

India’s economic growth and rising levels of health awareness have increased demand for high-quality healthcare. However, the double-burden of disease that country faces will likely outstrip the ability of the country to invest in healthcare at the same level as do developed countries. Innovative health technologies have the potential to address the growing gap in care. India’s unique set of constraints require technologies that are tailored for India’s needs. This talk will provide a quick overview of Stanford’s user-centric Biodesign process and our decade of experiment in applying the process to India’s needs. The speaker will also discuss some examples of technologies that have emerged from this experiment. The talk will conclude with the future of health technology innovation in India - both the promise it has and the hurdles it faces.

About the Speaker:
Dr. Anurag Mairal is an Adjunct Professor of Medicine and Director of Global Outreach Programs at Stanford Byers Center for Biodesign, Stanford University. He is also an Adjunct Professor at Stanford's Graduate School of Business and a Faculty Fellow and Advisor at Center for Innovation in Global Health. He serves as the Founding Chair of BME IDEA APAC, a community of medtech innovation programs in Asia Pacific. Concurrently, he is a co-founder and Executive Vice President of Orbees Medical, a SF Bay Area-based strategy consulting firm serving global healthcare industry, with a focus on medtech, pharmaceutical, and digital health industry. Recently, he took a sabbatical for two years to take a senior leadership role at PATH, a major global health nonprofit based in Seattle. Previously, he held several positions at Johnson & Johnson, including Business Development Director and Product Director for structural heart, cardiology, and peripheral vascular products at Cordis. An active mentor to entrepreneurs and industry professionals, he serves on the boards of several for-profit and non-profit organizations. 

Dr. Mairal earned a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder and an MBA from the University of California at Berkeley. He also holds an MS in chemical engineering from the Indian Institution of Technology in Mumbai and a BS in chemical engineering from National Institute of Technology, Raipur. Dr. Mairal was a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Twente, Netherlands and at University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Dr. Mairal has an MBA from the Haas School of Business at University of California, Berkeley. His work has been published in more than 30 publications, and he has seven issued patents.