ADITYA KOHLI
What was the rationale behind your career move towards being one of the Med tech influential leader?
Allied Medicals Limited (AML) has been manufacturing life saving medical equipment for over 4 decades now. We began with one core mission to manufacture industry-standard quality products at affordable prices. India being a huge country with an exponentially increasing market for medical infrastructure, we strategically invested our energies into setting up a robust research and development (R&D) centre that would work towards creating innovative medical equipments for intensive care units and operation theatres.
How have the manufacturing of emergency and ICU ventilators been affected during this unprecedented times and how have the Allied Medical Limited met the needs of patient care?
Last year and a half has been absolutely one-of-its-kind. My company intensified its production capacity and overall turnkey-time. Additionally, we had an edge over others owing to our inhouse set-up. Allied Medicals is a self-reliant company with dedicated R&D department, units for machining, fabrication, assembly and testing lines. Being self-reliant gave us the freedom to scale up and meet the needs of time even with lockdowns and challenged business times. Our ability to support patient care was amplified by our expansive in-house training facility that could reach out for installations and support 24x7.
These unprecedented times affected the healthcare industry to its core. How the Med Tech industry is contributing to the betterment of the current situation?
The medical fraternity, hospitals, their allied services, manufacturers, etc have stretched themselves beyond measure for the sake of mankind. Everyone has been giving in their best to provide more and more safety-supplies, medicines, equipments and over and above
everything, services. We are still amidst medical crisis, but these challenging times have drawn major focus on how deficient the medical infrastructure of this country is. I hope to see drastic improvements in times to come to enable us as a nation to be better prepared.
What are your key learning during this unprecedented times?
Lack of adequate medical infrastructure and manpower in India are the most important learning from this pandemic. We need a medical-policy framework in place to make sustainable changes foreseeing the probabilities of epidemics and pandemics in India to cater to a population of more than 136 crore people.
The other most important thing we’ve acknowledged as a company is our existential self-reliance. AML was the only company to deliver its full order of more than two thousand ventilators within the timelines, without compromising on the quality of equipment supplied. Moreover, we pushed our capacities and provided another set of two thousand plus ventilators between April and May 2021. All this was possible because every stage – from production to fabrication; from testing to quality control – were carried out in our state-of-the-art facility spread across 50,000 sq. ft. that comprises inhouse units for machining, fabrication, assembly and testing lines. Our work was not dependant on any external agency during lockdown and this was a boon for us.
What are your future endeavors to the medical industry as a leading Med Tech innovator?
I have always spoken about the importance of R&D in our line of work. AML has an excellent R&D unit but we aim to further intensify it. We came up with four new products during this pandemic and they have turned out to be commercially viable too. We created two models of high flow oxygen therapy equipment for Covid patients known as Allied High Flow Oxygen Therapy (HFOT). They received great feedback owing to high pressure oxygen supply critical to Covid care.
We also created two new variants of ventilators. Our Allied Meditec Vista Universal ICU Ventilator is a universal ventilator that can be used on neonatal as well as adult patients. With the fear of 3rd wave coming and the unexpected mutations happening with Corona virus, these universal ventilators are most useful to cater to paediatric as well as adult needs in emergencies.
A brief about yourself and your organization.
I am the CFO and Director, Sales at AML. Like I already said earlier, AML is a leading manufacturer, trader and exporter of hospital equipments. Our products are in-line with international and industry standard protocols and we have always been valued for our prompt customer service and support. AML boasts of state-of-the-art infrastructure spread across 50,000 sq. ft. that comprises inhouse units for machining, fabrication, assembly and testing lines.
A robust research and development section, along with most updated training facility are strong pillars of expansion and success at AML. We have a team of qualified and trained personnel to carry out roles in all departments. Collectively as a team, we aim to steer positive change in medical equipment industry through R&D and innovation and become world leaders.