GE Healthcare partners IIT lab to develop MRI

American manufacturing giant General Electric’s healthcare unit has signed pact with SAMEER, an R&D lab under the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) to codevelop an indigenous magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.

GE Healthcare and SAMEER, an independent lab setup inside IIT Mumbai by MeitY, will collaborate on the research, design and development of a 1.5 Tesla MRI platform that will give rise to whole-body, portable and digital MRI machines. The firm has supplied the magnet, one of the critical components, for the prototype MRI machine that SAMEER is developing.

“We are delighted to share the expertise and partnership in this journey that will significantly enhance India’s capability in the field of medical technology,” said Kieran Murphy, president and CEO, GE Healthcare.

The move to develop an indigenous MRI capabilities came as a mandate from the Government of India to boost the country's capabilities in the medical technology space. The government has already provided the first $6.5 million to SAMEER to build a prototype of its MRI machine, for which it is seeking help from GE.

Apart from working with SAMEER, GE Healthcare, through its joint venture partnership with Wipro in India, is also looking to grow skilling to support the government's Ayushman Bharat universal healthcare scheme. The company expects demand for its devices to go up as healthcare becomes more accessible, and is looking to train people who can operate these machines.