Philips HIC introduces INTUIS- Entry level Cath Labs in India

Pune: The India manufacturing unit of Netherlands Royal Philips got an impetus today with the launch Intuis , an entry level catheterization lab. The aim of launching "Intuis", being o provide tier II and tier III cities with affordable cardiac care. The equipment is completely designed developed and manufactured in India by Philips Healthcare Innovation Center (HIC) in Pune.The cath lab is the sixth product launched by the centre in Pune for its Indian and global market.The company will export cath labs to global markets of Latin America, Africa and Western Europe.

Talking to Business Standard,Bert Van Meurs, General Manager, Image Guided Therapy at Philips said "This is the sixth Philips product which is entirely designed, developed and manufactured in India. We are looking at India as a global supply base for our products. Our strategy is to build a mature organisation in India. We are also expanding our mobile surgery portfolio in Pune for global markets. There is room for further expansion as well. We are also designing and manufacturing general imaging and mammography

portfolio,"

Speaking about company products, Mr. Meurs said that 50% of the mobile surgery products were developed in Netherlands while the other 50 in Pune. He revealed that they had a large number of products on their portfolio and some of the general X ray's were being designed and developed here. Besides diagnostic products, the company, he stated was also planning to manufacture some consumer market focused products in India.

Elaborating on the companies future plans the General Manager stated that besides designing and developing high end diagnostic products in India they were also planning to use indigenous components in their products. The earlier 20% localisation of components had increased to become 40% today, according to Mr. Meurs. Philips India presently is catering to 80 emerging and several Western European markets according to Rekha Ranganathan, General Manager, Mobile Surgery,Philips image guided therapy systems and head of Philips HIC.

According to Ms. Ranganathan , Intuis due of its indigenous character had a competitive advantage of 25 -30% over other products of a similar kind."This need is felt acutely in tier-II cities, where the availability of effective healthcare infrastructure is often a challenge. With Philips Intuis, we are addressing the evolving needs of cardiologists and patients beyond metro's and tier-I cities," she added.

According to Meurs, the Philip India's hub journey for its products began after it acquired Mumbai-based Alpha X-Ray Technologies in September, 2008."The reason why we came here was the capability to design for value. Taking a premium system and stripping it down for other markets will never work and our engineers in the Netherlands do not have the capability to design from bottom-up a value product. Our India centre capability and engineers are equipped to design in that fashion," added Meurs.

Philips HIC , Pune manufactures both interventional and diagnostic X-Ray systems. The center has successfully installed over 1,000 systems in more than 80 different countries, including countries in Western Europe. Since 2012, HIC has launched five global products -- MobileDiagnost Opta, Allura FC, Allura Centron, BV Vectra and Primary Diagnost.

Philips has changed the name of its health care division in Pune to Healthcare Innovation Centre (HIC) from its earlier Development Manufacturing Centre as part of their innovation plans.