world. She has assured us full support in getting funding and regulatory approvals. We have already tied up with I~ 2 T Institute in the US for assistance in marketing our product in the North American market.”
Apart from rural health, 3Nethra also takes care of rural employment. The business model empowers small rural entrepreneurs and creates a self-sustaining ecosystem around the device that would not require government subsidies.
“A two-month course trains any graduate to operate and maintain the machine. The person can then either purchase or rent the machine to be used in his village and surrounding villages. He can cycle to each village with the machine and conduct testing for the patients at their home, charging just about50. We want to achieve true democratization of healthcare – affordable to everybody, provided to the community by the community members.”
Developing 3Nethra has been challenging on many technical fronts. Since the medical devices industry is highly research oriented and expects huge profitability, even the most basic functionality in existing devices has been patented.
“We were trying to combine several optical devices into one. For this, we needed to split the light beam so that the same beam can be used for testing multiple things at the same time. Though there are several processes available for this, we had to struggle hard to find a unique way of doing it, so that none of the existing patents were infringed. Moreover, we had to do it in a cost-effective manner that allowed the device to remain portable. This was, by far, the most challenging part of designing 3Nethra.”
The company, fortunately, received early angel funding and did not have to face many financial challenges; most of their challenges were on the technical side. The process involved a high level of R&D inputs and getting the right people was important. “We built a team of around 12 very competent researchers. Most of them had worked with me at either Ericsson or Philips and were passionate about what we were trying to do. We also tied up with IIT Kharagpur and IISc. We have recently managed to obtain a $5 million funding from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India, two of the leading venture capital funds in the country.”
The company has applied for seven patents on 3Nethra, the most important being the one on cornea imaging, retina imaging and refraction measurement via a single optic line. Besides that, there are patents on image processing and pattern recognition and on indirect measurement of physical parameters.
3Nethra has received due recognition, with the team winning several awards. In 2010, 3Nethra was awarded the Sankalp Award. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) conferred the Lockheed Martin Gold Medal upon it in 2011. The same year, it also received the Piramal Award, the Samsung Innovation Quotient Award and the Anjali Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award.
Shyam shares his future plans. “We are now working on another device, ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity) machine.” ROP affects prematurely born babies. The eye is the last organ to develop in the fetus, and sometimes, when a baby is born prematurely, the retina is not yet fully developed. In many such cases, the retina can grow unusually fast over the 3-6 weeks after birth. The disorganized growth of retinal blood vessels may result in scarring and retinal detachment, which, if not treated in time, can lead to blindness.
“We need to scan about 3-4 million prematurely born babies each year for ROP. You need a special, wide angle camera to do this. Only a couple of companies currently produce such cameras and they easily cost several crores each. There are just 30-40 such cameras available in India. The ROP detection device we are developing would be substantially cheaper and much easier to use than any other available right now. Since most of the premature births occur in hospitals, many
Apart from rural health, 3Nethra also takes care of rural employment. The business model empowers small rural entrepreneurs and creates a self-sustaining ecosystem around the device that would not require government subsidies.
“A two-month course trains any graduate to operate and maintain the machine. The person can then either purchase or rent the machine to be used in his village and surrounding villages. He can cycle to each village with the machine and conduct testing for the patients at their home, charging just about50. We want to achieve true democratization of healthcare – affordable to everybody, provided to the community by the community members.”
Developing 3Nethra has been challenging on many technical fronts. Since the medical devices industry is highly research oriented and expects huge profitability, even the most basic functionality in existing devices has been patented.
“We were trying to combine several optical devices into one. For this, we needed to split the light beam so that the same beam can be used for testing multiple things at the same time. Though there are several processes available for this, we had to struggle hard to find a unique way of doing it, so that none of the existing patents were infringed. Moreover, we had to do it in a cost-effective manner that allowed the device to remain portable. This was, by far, the most challenging part of designing 3Nethra.”
The company, fortunately, received early angel funding and did not have to face many financial challenges; most of their challenges were on the technical side. The process involved a high level of R&D inputs and getting the right people was important. “We built a team of around 12 very competent researchers. Most of them had worked with me at either Ericsson or Philips and were passionate about what we were trying to do. We also tied up with IIT Kharagpur and IISc. We have recently managed to obtain a $5 million funding from Accel Partners and IDG Ventures India, two of the leading venture capital funds in the country.”
The company has applied for seven patents on 3Nethra, the most important being the one on cornea imaging, retina imaging and refraction measurement via a single optic line. Besides that, there are patents on image processing and pattern recognition and on indirect measurement of physical parameters.
3Nethra has received due recognition, with the team winning several awards. In 2010, 3Nethra was awarded the Sankalp Award. The Department of Science and Technology (DST) conferred the Lockheed Martin Gold Medal upon it in 2011. The same year, it also received the Piramal Award, the Samsung Innovation Quotient Award and the Anjali Mashelkar Inclusive Innovation Award.
Shyam shares his future plans. “We are now working on another device, ROP (Retinopathy of Prematurity) machine.” ROP affects prematurely born babies. The eye is the last organ to develop in the fetus, and sometimes, when a baby is born prematurely, the retina is not yet fully developed. In many such cases, the retina can grow unusually fast over the 3-6 weeks after birth. The disorganized growth of retinal blood vessels may result in scarring and retinal detachment, which, if not treated in time, can lead to blindness.
“We need to scan about 3-4 million prematurely born babies each year for ROP. You need a special, wide angle camera to do this. Only a couple of companies currently produce such cameras and they easily cost several crores each. There are just 30-40 such cameras available in India. The ROP detection device we are developing would be substantially cheaper and much easier to use than any other available right now. Since most of the premature births occur in hospitals, many
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