Page 27 - Vol-4-Issue-1-Sep-Dec2022

IIMV FIELD

I started my entrepreneurial journey in a Bio-Design and Healthcare Entrepreneurship Fellowship program
at CfHE, IIT Hyderabad. I met my co-founder, Akitha Kolloju, who is a biomedical engineer and experienced
in medical devices.

We just finished a one-year healthcare entrepreneurship fellowship in India that included clinical immersion,
need identification, and validation through a well-established Bio Design process at IIT Hyderabad.Both the
founders of Heamac had an affinity for neonatal needs. We spent around three months finding out needs in
neonatal and maternal care. After finding out problems from our observations, we identified our need area
as neonatal jaundice management and worked on a system that suits both government and private setups.
We spent 350 hours in focused immersion and worked for three months on building over 50 concept
explorations. This was funnelled out to one viable concept that has been developed into a demonstrative
proof of concept.

How TIDE 2.0 Phase 1 from IIM Vizag helped us

We have received TIDE 2.0 phase 1 prototyping funding to develop our idea, which is a neonatal jaundice
trend tracking device that will provide smartness and enable treatment of the neonate in a home
environment.

With the financial support, we could successfully develop the prototype and are looking forward to further
opportunities to build a scalable product.

Challenges

Entrepreneurship is a hard road, and it isn't always as glamorous as it looks from the outside.It requires a lot
of patience and determination to stick with the journey. Along with the scarcity in supply of semiconductors,
the next challenge was to find a local vendor in Hyderabad, which consumed a larger chunk of our time. This
whole process should be as per ISO 13485 medical device safety standards. We have overcome all these
obstacles and have developed our final product. Now we are heading to clinical evaluation in maternal and
children’s hospitals in Hyderabad.

Advice to young entrepreneurs

I believe that one who is in bliss by himself or herself can spread the same to others. My Guru had always
told me that design is a never-ending process, and we always try to make it much better than it is today. It
is always better to have something than nothing, so I always try to add some value to both my personal and
professional lives, and being consistent is the key to a sustainable and successful life.

The next big thing on the business agenda

Heamac sees a huge potential in the area, as the market size for neonatal Phototherapy devices is USD 1.2
billion for India alone. The Asia-Pacific and Indian baby markets are growing at a 5 percent CAGR, owing to
the rise in the number of maternal and childcare hospitals and the demand for robust technologies in home
care.

In India alone, there are 120,000 hospitals (private nursing homes and corporate hospitals) and 1500 public
health centres that cater to the 25 million babies that are born every year.We calculate the impact scale as
the total number of lives saved for each Lite360.

25 VOL. / ISSUE /SEP DEC