RAJIV NATH

What was the rationale behind your career move towards being one of the Med-tech influential leaders?

I joined HMD in 1984 and the growth of HMD and my career is inter linked for last 37 years. After learning about shop floor mass production management principle in initial years I spent time in various dept. and then setting up new dept. where none existed e.g. marketing in addition to sales, finance in addition to IT, HR&IR in addition to Personnel, QA & QMS in addition to QC, Design & Engineering in addition to Tool Room, IT in addition to Accounts etc. Later I realized HMD’s progress depended upon the progress of the Eco System and founded AiMeD (Association of Indian Medical Device Industry) so that a thriving ecosystem would allow development and global competitiveness of Indian Med Tech sector under HMD’s leadership.

How the technological advancements in the Medical industry has changed the face of medical science in India? How your company is implementing new technologies to combat and shortage of medical syringes?

Manufacturing technology has evolved over the years in favor of higher automation and efficiency in manufacturing with higher output rates per hour and reducing human skill interface so that unskilled or semi-skilled workers can run machines. Quality assurance systems, process controls, statistical quality control and digital vision inspection have replaced 100% online physical visual inspection based quality control

systems. Remote IT assisted maintenance has replaced the need for travel of overseas engineers for maintenance and upgrades. Next Phase is IT enabled machines & artificial intelligence. From bringing in innovative new products to improving the existing ones, Indian Medtech industry are gaining traction for bringing unique propositions to address some of the challenges faced by the healthcare system during the pandemic. We at HMD realized the growing demand of syringes and rapidly ramped up our technology to produce auto disable syringes on the lines originally designed for standard disposable syringes for assisting the largest vaccination drive in the world by technology up gradation as well as for introducing low dead space 0.3ml AD syringes for enabling reduced vaccination wastages and also introduced needles with safety covers to prevent sharp injuries to healthcare workers.

These unprecedented times affected the healthcare industry to its core. How can the Med Tech industry help contribute to patient care.?

COVID-19 has put the Medtech industry at center stage with unparalleled demand for diagnostic tests, personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other critical medical supplies. The Covid situation has brought in a revolution in the Indian medical system’s digital evolution and healthcare facilities. Homecare, tele- consultation and tele-medicines are increasingly being relied upon to augment hospital care treatment. There are also massive opportunities for healthcare sector in X-ray and CT scan for AI assisted Covid diagnostics and remote healthcare management. India has shown its capability of rapid product development during the COVID19 pandemic and it has a strong hold in the IT domain, we can build sophisticated software products in the healthcare domain for healthcare informatics and treatment.

The in vitro diagnostics (IVD) is recorded to mark a year on year growth of 30 per cent in 2020 which will be double the market rate in average 10 years. The size of IVD industry in the year 2019 was Rs 7500 crore which was slated to grow at a CAGR of about 15 per cent before the COVID crisis. From 50 Crore pcs per annum capacity in June 2020 of 0.5 ml AD Syringes that ensure safe single use injections. HMD is currently producing at rate of 85 Crore pcs per annum & hopeful to create capacity of 100 Crore p.a. by July & 130 Crore pcs p.a. by early 2022, for this one size alone. 0.5ml AD is the size sought by Public Healthcare in India and most countries for Covid vaccination. For Private Healthcare the DispoVan Disposable Syringes are still popular but we see a shift by the progressive hospitals (who wish to assure their patients of better levels of injection safety) for auto disable syringes that ensure One Injection One Syringe.

What are your key learning during this unprecedented times?

The Covid-19 pandemic situation was initially dreadfully challenging in India with a huge population and highly import dependent medical devices sector. COVID-19 crisis has shown that Indian medical devices sector can rise to the challenge. When imports got disrupted, specific devices detailed with quantified production shortages and a focused Inter-Ministry Group coordinating with domestic manufacturers via AiMeD had addressed production bottlenecks and challenges so that not only capacity got utilized but also ramped up rapidly. The Government of India through its flagship “Make in India” initiative relied heavily on the Indian manufacturers to meet the rising demand of essential healthcare equipment’s for the country, pushing the Indian medical devices sector to become self-reliant. We recognize that the government interventions helped the medical devices industry scale up production during the pandemic. We enjoyed an unprecedented teamwork and rapid proactive communication from NPPA who became a facilitator instead of a Regulator & Dept. of Pharma, DPIIT, Invest India and MSME Ministry as they set up help desks to address production bottlenecks of all Medical Devices especially, those related to COVID viz Sanitizers, Masks, Ventilators, Gloves & COVID IVD Test Kits etc. There were only 20 firms manufacturing 62 lacs per year personal protective equipment (PPE) before the outbreak of Covid-19. But within two-three months, the number of manufacturers listed with AiMeD increased to 136 with 26 Crore annual capacity.

Similarly, the number of Indian firms manufacturing, ventilator manufacturers went up from 8 to 15, mask manufacturers from 21 to 49, swab manufacturers from zero to three and sanitizer manufacturers from 35 to 48 and the number of Indian firms manufacturing RNA extraction kit listed with AiMeD before the outbreak of Covid-19 was Zero but today 16 Indian firms listed with AiMeD are manufacturing 265.4 million pcs/ annum. Similarly, the number of Indian firms manufacturing Diagnostic Kit (PCR Kit) went from Zero to 8 manufacturing 1.47 billion+ pcs/annum, Covid-19 Rapid Diagnostic Test Kit from zero to 3 manufacturing 46.5 million pcs/annum and VTM from Zero to 10 manufacturing 3.77 Billion pcs/annum listed with AiMeD. ‘Make in India’ got a major boost with Biggies

We recognize that the government interventions helped the medical devices industry scale up production during the pandemic

like Maruti, Mahindra, Tata Motors & BHEL stepping forward to make Medical Devices in collaboration with AiMeD members

What are your future endeavors to the medical industry as a leading Med Tech innovator?

HMD’s top priorities right now is to help the Govt. to combat the pandemic. HMD had been ensuring continuity of supply chain and its manufacturing plants to ensure no shortages for its critically needed disposable devices during the Covid crisis. Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd (HMD), is a reputed leading manufacturer of Disposable Syringes in the World and possibly the largest for Kojak Auto Disable syringes that is making India proud with its global recognition as a key international supplier of critically needed syringes to COVAX facility of WHO (via UNICEF) , Brazil and even Japan for Covid Vaccination while being on track to timely supply the 4 orders received from GoI on 0.5 ml AD syringes totaling 44.25 Crore pcs of which 26.75 Crore pcs has been supplied on time by May end to help in vaccinating India against Covid and balance by September . Last year in December, HMD has also already dispatched 14 Crore AD syringes to the COVAX stockpile Facility created in anticipation for supporting global worldwide Vaccination Drive. This is in addition to our ongoing global contractual commitments to support global vaccination projects for 0.1ml & 0.5 ml AD Kojak syringes in developing world whether for Yellow Fever or Measles or Hepatitis B or Pentavalent or BCG etc in addition to Covid vaccination requirements of 0.3ml AD syringes for Pfizer’s vaccines or 0.5 ml AD Kojak for Astra Zeneca/ Serums or Bharat Biotech’s vaccines. However this year our focus is India as our country needs come 1st. We have reserved over 2/3rd capacity for India and declined orders from many overseas new potential buyers.

Now our machines crank out more than 3.75 lac syringes of various types per hour at our factories spread over 11 acres in Faridabad industrial district in Haryana. HMD had capacity to produce over 250 Crore assorted syringes of various types and sizes per year & we are investing over ₹100 Crore from our own resources, without govt. support for scaling this up to 300 crore by July in our sincere quest for ensuring no shortages in India.

A brief about yourself and your organization.

I am the lucky son born with a ‘silver syringe’ but trained by my father and groomed by my organization to continue with his legacy. My formative years were in - boarding schools – St. Georges College & Hampton Court in Mussoorie where there was an all-round grooming of personality in leadership, fraternity, discipline & team work based value systems. I completed my high school from St. Columbus’ in Delhi, which further reinforced value system of eternal friendship bonds, hard work and humility. I graduated in B.Com (Hon.) from PG DAV College in Delhi University with many hours spent in studying books on Management & Psychology in DU’s South Delhi Campus. The college experience and boarding school experience taught me to be street smart and fend for myself without parental hand holding and develop independent thinking and seek innovative

solutions to standard problems. My father, late Shri. Narindra Nath founded HMD and prior to that was a pharmacist. He pioneered the launch a comprehensive range of sizes of Glass Syringes in India (Glass Van brand). His passion for sincere honest hard work helped him serve the medical profession with affordable world-class medical devices. It is because of his vision, in-depth knowledge of management and organizational expertise that the HMD group has scaled to new heights every day under HMD’s culture. As current Managing Director of Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices Ltd., I am now carrying forward the legacy of fair business practices and his established value systems for our organization while shouldering responsibility of well-being of 3500 direct employees & 5000 indirect dependents of HMD supply chain family. Fortunately, our current turnover is more than 650 Cr. to sustain them.

A brief history about HMD Healthcare group:

Hindustan Syringes & Medical Devices (HMD) one of the Top 3 Manufacturers of Disposable Syringes in the World and is the leading manufacturer for Auto Disable Syringes, with offices in USA and UK and having an annual turnover of over US$ 95million. HMD is a trend setter and has pioneered innovative Medical Disposables to compete successfully with entrenched multibillion dollar MNC’s and became market leader of I.V. Cannulas, Syringes & Needles in India. HMD has nine highly automated Plants and has a nationwide customer base of over 5000 dealers. HMD’s primary international markets are USA, Asia and Middle East. All its ICMED and MDSAP Certified Products are manufactured as per ISO Standards, and in compliance with the European CE & US FDA Regulatory requirements.HMD founded on 2nd August, 1957 was the very first Technical Collaboration between a Japanese Corporation and an Indian MSME initially set up to produce Glass Syringes and subsequently added other Products such as Surgical Blades in 1971, Single Use Syringes in 1986, Single use Needle in 1987, Cannula manufacturing in 1989, Scalp vein Infusion Sets in 1991, I.V Cannulas in 1992 Auto Disable Syringes in 2001, Vacuum Blood Collection Tubes in 2007, Blood Collection Needles in 2008 and safety I.V Cannulas to its product range. in 2014

HMD reiterates its’ Global Vision and long term goal of becoming ‘Top5’ in each of its business segments & building a unique competitive advantage in its key businesses.