Govt Accelerates MedTech & e-Health Missions as Jitendra Singh Reviews ANRF

While undertaking a comprehensive review of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation, Dr Jitendra Singh asked the ministries to accelerate the collaboration in MedTech and e-health missions while solidifying industry-linked R&D pathways.

Union Minister of State for Science and Technology and MoS PMO, Dr Jitendra Singh, has carried out a comprehensive review of the Anusandhan National Research Foundation (ANRF) at Technology Bhawan and asserted that the Government has emphasized scaling up India's MedTech and e-health innovation ecosystem.

According to the Union Minister, ANRF is becoming a central pillar in the Indian ambition to emerge as a world leader in research and innovation. For this, he emphasized that scientific initiatives across ministries must work on a common, coordinated mechanism and not on isolated schemes.

A common mechanism, he said, will accelerate the pace of national missions, especially in MedTech, e-Health, and other priority technology areas.

Dr. Singh has further asked officials to speed up collaborations with the Ministry of Health in order to push forward indigenous medical technologies.

He termed MedTech and e-health as critical for future-ready healthcare systems. He also emphasized the increasing requirement of supporting deep-tech missions that will define India's long-term scientific capabilities.

Moreover, Dr. Singh highlighted the operational efficiency in research, with a call for procedural flexibility, especially for those projects whose delays result from international procurement cycles.

Allowing smoother pathways, he added, would help researchers maintain momentum in scientific areas that are moving quickly.

Various milestones of the Foundation were presented in detail during the review by ANRF CEO Dr Shivkumar Kalyanaraman.

"ANRF's operational architecture is now fully functional, covering foundational research, mission-mode programmes, industry-academic partnerships, and the RDI Fund, which provides patient capital and private co-funding for translation, validation, and scale-up," Kalyanaraman said.

He added that mission-mode programmes in priority areas are rapidly moving ahead, including MedTech.

On the other hand, the Advanced Research Grant platform has expanded support for frontier research across science, engineering, humanities, and social sciences.

Dr Singh said ANRF would serve as a feeder pipeline for the RDI Fund in supporting technologies on the journey from TRL-2 to TRL-6, with preparation for higher levels of readiness, commercial partnership, and national deployment.

Additionally, the Minister has asked ANRF to further enhance cooperation in MedTech and e-health, and other deep-tech areas.

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