India "a known quantity" for Canadian Technology; Slick World - All eyes on India; May - June 2010

Kathryn Engel

From its Calgary headquarters, one Canadian company is attempting to get India up to speed on its quality of medical images.

While much of the world has replaced its old film-based X-rays with digital radiography (DR) systems, India is just starting to make the transition, and Calgary’s Imaging Dynamics Company Ltd (IDC), has done everything in its power to cash in on the modernization.

“DR is still emerging in India, we believe we have about a 40 per cent share right now in India,” says Swapan Kakumanu, IDC executive vice-president and CFO. “Having said that, unlike China where we sell thousands of systems per year, China is three or four years ahead in the adoption of DR than India. In India a lot of people have settled for CR, which is an inferior system, and it’s cumbersome but that is really going to change now as hospitals are comparing with their counterparts internationally. The whole install base in India (of DR units) is around 50 units so there is a huge, huge opportunity for India to grow as this market segment expands in the next one or two years as the technology takes over.”

Bharat Rudra is ISTPCanada’s Country Manager for India. ISTP (International Science and Technology Partnerships) Canada is the non-profit facilitator of funding provided through Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade for R&D collaborations between Canadians and key trading partners, including India.

ISTP aims to accelerate the commercialization of R&D-based companies like IDC by fostering international opportunities in places such as India, something he says is key to their success.

“In a country like India, the challenges of growth are astronomical and partners are needed in all sectors and areas for long-term prosperity for India. The potential is huge for Canadian technology being introduced to the market,” says Rudra.

The markets for companies such as IDC are almost 100 per cent international, and with an increasingly global economy, Rudra says it is imperative to get them connected to their destination markets.

“Considering the global economy, how things have unfolded, you can see if you want to stay at the top of your game bringing economic benefits to your country, you have to work globally. And you have to have some mechanism of operating those collaborations. We facilitate a lot of matchmaking work, so we take Canadian SMEs and connect them with a partner in India – not only leading to R&D collaborations but they also often can lead to business-to-business collaborations. "Similarly, coming from India, we work at connecting those with Canada. We have to work at a lot larger levels with the countries we are working with now and countries we want to work in if we want to provide the best support for the growth of our R&D sector.”

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