ICMR picks seven institutes to develop priority medical devices and diagnostics

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has selected seven research centres at Indian institutions to develop priority medical devices and diagnostic technologies, according to a results list published on ICMR’s website for its special call for ICMR Centres for Advanced Research (CAR). The list is not dated. Under the call, issued on 1 June 2026, the maximum funding for a single centre is Rs 15 crore for up to five years. The results were reported on 16 October 2026 by The Indian Practitioner, which credited The Times of India, and MedGate Today.

The selected institutions are the Indian Institutes of Technology at Kharagpur, Delhi, Bombay, Kanpur and Madras, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Coimbatore. The reports say the scheme emphasises regulatory-compliant product development, prototyping, validation and eventual commercialisation.

Who will work on what

• IIT Bombay, led by Dr Abhijit Majumder: portable screening, monitoring and point-of-care technologies for primary healthcare.
• Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, led by Prof Gopal S Pillai: developing, validating and translating affordable technologies for eye and vascular diseases.
• IISc Bengaluru, led by Dr Kaushik Chatterjee: biomaterials and translational medical devices.
• IIT Kharagpur, PRAGATICAR, led by Prof Suman Chakraborty: frugal diagnostics, regenerative and personalised healthcare, artificial intelligence, digital health and advanced therapeutics.
• IIT Delhi, CAR-PATH, led by Prof Vivekanandan Perumal: priority applied healthcare technologies.
• IIT Kanpur, led by Prof Amitabha Bandyopadhyay: a multidisciplinary programme to develop 10 priority healthcare products, which the reports do not name.
• IIT Madras, TARaNGaM, led by Prof Mohanasankar Sivaprakasam: a translational hub for next-generation medical technology, devices and diagnostics.

According to ICMR’s call document, the list of about 100 priority medical device and diagnostic technologies was drawn up in consultation with clinicians across India, including in tier-1, tier-2 and tier-3 cities. Applicants had to propose developing at least eight to 10 technologies from that list, with a mix of low-risk and high-risk technologies. The call was open only to investigators at the top 25 institutions in the NIRF 2025 overall ranking, favoured those with a record in research, prototyping, technology transfer and commercialisation, and required centres to use existing infrastructure, train health technology research staff and keep running after the funding ends, with the host institution taking the centre over. ICMR’s funding covers product development only, not new infrastructure.

What is not yet known

ICMR’s results list gives each centre’s project number, lead investigator, institution and title. It does not specify which devices most of the centres will develop, their development timelines or when any product might be available for clinical use. The list is undated, the roughly 100-item priority list, which the call places in an annexure, was not published in the reports, and neither the total budget for the scheme nor any arrangement for industry partners to license what the centres produce was disclosed.

Our reading

The points below are analysis by The Healthcare Daily.

• The Healthcare Daily’s reading: the money goes to academic centres, but the stated aim is products that reach the market, which in practice means licensing or co-development with manufacturers. Device and diagnostics companies looking for an Indian development pipeline should approach these seven centres early, before technology-transfer terms are settled.
• Up to Rs 15 crore per centre for up to five years, spread across at least eight technologies, works out at less than Rs 2 crore per technology on average. That is enough for prototyping and early validation; the reports’ emphasis on regulatory-compliant development suggests clinical evaluation and scale-up will need partners or further funding.
• The mix of low-risk and high-risk products matters for timing. Low-risk items are the likelier first outputs, so buyers in primary care and public health programmes may see results before hospital-grade devices appear.