Date: 06/12/2010

Medical is becoming more of e (electronics)-medical and is driven by semiconductor tech

While the population growth is curtailed by advancement in various techniques but has resulted in growth of aging population. Electronics and semiconductor chips did not play any direct role in birth control, however the devices/equipments powered by sensors and semiconductor chips are becoming essential to diagnose, monitor, and cure range of sicknesses and diseases. While the families becoming nucleus and the aging population raising, the health will become a major economic factor globally. India, with fairly controlled population-growth, lacks in health improvements compared to global health standards. The gigantic effort to provide health to 1 billion + population is challenging and the technology comes very handy to make it less challenging.

The Indian health industry is growing at phenomenal rate not only due to local health market but also due to health tourism, where sick people from developed world can visit this region to receive medical attention.

It's not just the aging population but also young working class who overstretch their ability to work harder and earn faster resulting in more health care spending. Due to change in life style, environmental degradation, and also lack of hygiene; the rural mass of India also spend more on health care compared to earlier. So overall, the Indian health market is big and it has to be attended.

In a recent study, ISA has valued Medical Electronics at Rs. 3850 crores (820 million US$) of the Indian overall healthcare market of Rs. 300,000 crores (63 billion US$). ISA's recent report was released by India's most known medical expert Dr. Devi Shetty of Narayana Hrudayalaya in presence of executives from semiconductor industry Vivek Sharma of ST and Bobby Mitra of TI. Dr. Shetty is such a busy man; he has just come out of operation theatre to release the report (see the pic below). His Hrudayalaya has enhanced Indian capabilities in advanced treatment for serious illnesses. There are many dedicated medicos such as Dr. Shetty serving in the rural areas of India.

ee Herald

While medicos always puts the best of human intelligence and skills to enhance the health but the need of tools for fast and accurate treatment is never ending demand. Electronics sensors and semiconductors can see in the human body what the doctors can't see; and process the data more accurately and very faster resulting in reduction in health cost and better treatment for patients. So, electronics and semiconductor chips play critical role in medical imaging, patient monitoring systems, digital hearing aids and infusion pumps, eye care and a lot more. With percentage of 1 doctor per 2000 people in India compared to global average of 3 doctors per 2000. India's hospitals demand more medical electronics equipment to treat more patients in less time. This is what market is demanding but the people surely needs more doctors. ISA forecasted by the end of 2015, the medical equipment electronics market is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 17% to reach around USD 2 Billion from USD 0.8 Billion in 2009. Telemedicine is emerging as new method for rural population to quickly access medical experts in the city.


The global joints such as Siemens, Wipro GE and Philips have seen this opportunity quite early and invested heavily to garner a market share of 18%, 17% and 10% respectively. However the opportunities for domestic player is still huge, 45 % of the market is addressed by smaller, niche domestic players, as per ISA.

Nearly every type of semiconductor component and electronic devices/components and equipments finds some role to play in medical electronics. What's important is device/equipment's ability to perform reliably (zero-failure and exceed the rated specifications) and win the doctor's trust, quite a tough task.

For the semiconductor chip vendors, the Indian market is very important due to Indian companies not only developing products but also doing original designs for Medical OEMs either in their own labs or through design R&D outsourcing companies such as Wipro, TCS, MindTree, GlobalLogic and HCL. GE has developed India specific medical electronic equipment products for Indian market with an idea to launch the same product globally with some design tweaks.

It can be said the advanced-medical is now shaping up as e-medical or e-health.