The most significant distinction between businesspeople and the most admirable leaders is that later with their astute observations identify the existing divide between the demand for a particular solution and its supply. Instead of stopping at identification, these innovative exemplars create simple yet profoundly impactful solutions and bring them under the masses’ reach.

Gaurav Agarwal, as the Managing Director (MD) of Innovation Imaging Technologies Pvt Ltd – IITPL, understood and identified gap areas of reach, access, and cost of therapy as big limiters or decelerating factors in making cardiovascular care more accessible to a large part of society.

A Bengaluru-based MedTech start-up with a mission to make cardiac care accessible to everyone, under Gaurav’s futuristic leadership, IITPL is the country’s fastest-growing and,

Asia’s Most Awarded Cath Lab Manufacturing Firm

IITPL is a joint venture between VJ Technologies, New York, Ex-Alpha X-ray Promoters, Germany and India, and Innovation Healthcare, New Delhi. With over 240 sold units and 175+ installations in India, IITPL is a leading Cath lab Manufacturer in India, positioned at number 2 in unit sales.

IITPL’s first revolutionary Cath Lab, “Pinnacle,” has won 11 national and International awards. It is the only company to win Good Design and Red Dot awards for Its Cath Lab “Pinnacle”. Also one of the youngest receivers of the India Medical Device Company of the year award in 2020.

“We have a 90 % customer satisfaction rate across 175 + installations so far and less than 48 Hrs. of downtime at any installation since its inception,” says Gaurav, who completed his B. Tech degree in Biomedical Engineering from the first ever batch at Manipal Institute of Technology in 1996 and later, an executive MBA from IIM Kozhikode.

His career spans over a quarter of a century, working with some of the biggest names such as Dornier, 3M, Boston Scientific and Abbott Vascular, and Meril Life Sciences. Gaurav has nearly two decades of vast experience in the cardiovascular device industry.

The Leader in Innovation

In his professional journey, before co-founding Innovation and IITPL, Gaurav was the marketing manager of Asia pacific for Abbott Vascular and went on to head India’s only MedTech Unicorn Meril Life Science in 2010. He co-founded Innovation in 2010, intending to bring cutting-edge technologies and democratized cardiovascular care to the country.

Today, Innovation serves over 1500 hospitals with life-saving cardiovascular devices, and IITPL has 175 Cath Labs in 114 cities across India.

IITPL is one of the nine companies globally and only the second company from India which makes Cath Labs. Gaurav started his IITPL journey with its revolutionary Pinnacle Cath lab, which addressed an unmet need for a versatile Cath Lab under ₹2 Cr. Pinnacle is designed to meet global standards in medical imaging. Here, supercomputing algorithms are used for the first time in Medical Imaging Technology, resulting in Sharp, Virtually Noise Free, High-Resolution Image quality.

Pinnacle’s other features include,

• Optimized Radiation Dose
• Leading User Interface
• Aspire Image Quality
• Single, Large Ceiling Mounted Display Monitor
• Image Modes
• Other Features

At the Pinnacle of Intelligence

Gaurav says, “Our second generation Cath Lab ‘Pinnacle Agile’ further strengthened the platform and our presence in India by giving enhanced mobility options that make it the most versatile Cath Lab in the market.” Pinnacle Agile gives Interventionists the freedom to do any Cardiovascular/Peripheral Vascular Procedure with Ease.

Pinnacle Agile’s other features include, 

• Lower Table Height
• Sharp, High-Resolution Clinical Images
• Variable Source to Image Distance
• Full Body Coverage
• ASPIRE™ – Advanced Supercomputing-Based Pinnacle Image Resolution
• Table Swivel
• Optimum Smartness

Gaurav ensures that IITPL remains innovative in its offering. It recently launched its latest and most advanced Cath Lab ‘Premier,’ a floor mounted single plane Cath Lab, which provides unmatched space optimization enabling a wide range of Cardiac, Neuro, and Peripheral Vascular procedures.

Some Key features of Premier:

• Floor Mounted Single Plane Lab, For Cardiovascular, Peripheral Vascular and Neuro Vascular Diagnostic and Interventional Procedures.
• +120 Gantry movement provides unmatched Space Optimization enabling a wide range of Cardiac, Neuro and Peripheral Vascular procedures.
• Non -Touch Based Anticollision Sensors for Detector & L – Arm
• Table pivot Movement of +/- 90 Deg, Provides Greater flexibility to do Vascular Hybrid cases & greater access to the patient for resuscitation during emergencies.
• Better ROI with Versatile capabilities such as Cardiac, EP, Pacemakers, Vascular and Neuro procedures.
• Real-time verification of the stent positioning
• A unique combination of Technology and Design to deliver high-quality images at a low dose.

Testament to Superlative Revolutions

Gaurav shares, “At IITPL, we have always been committed to creating a product at par with other international contemporaries. Eleven national and International awards are a testament to our superlative product design. We have introduced various first-time features in our segment which were not there earlier.”

~Lifetime free software upgrade on the machine

~Only company to provide Hassle-free upgradability option from the base model to the top model

~Pinnacle – World’s smallest Fixed Flat Panel, fully digital Cath Lab

~Pinnacle Pro- World’s most affordable Fixed Flat Panel Cath lab

~Pinnacle Agile – The most versatile Cath Lab in the Market

~Lowest radiation dose across all the Cath labs

Exemplifying Tech-Knowl-Edge

Being an experienced leader, sharing his opinion on embracing modern technologies, Gaurav says that the three big tech trends that they at IITPL are extremely bullish about are

~ AR/VR

~ Robotics

~ AI/ML

He adds, “We have, in collaboration with leading academic institutions like IITs and IISC, leveraged these tech trends to achieve the following goals,”

~ Make cardiovascular therapy safer

~ Make it more precise

~ And improve its use experience

Describing challenges, Gaurav says that the current landscape is that India imports nearly 80% of its consumption of medical devices and is almost 90% import-dependent on Medical electronics. Other challenges are a lack of component availability and unfavourable public procurement.

Resolute in Character

At IITPL, he makes his team believe that the test of character is in resilience. They keep their innovation engine running and try to find innovative solutions to the problems. “With various first-time features in our product segment, IITPL has always paved the way for creative solutions,” he adds.

Along with this, IITPL has also set up a state-of-the-art Cath Lab manufacturing facility in Bengaluru, capable of producing 240 Cath Labs in a year and catering to half of the annual demand for Cath Labs in the country.

Gaurav is also part of various advisory panels on policymaking where he advocates and suggests ways to make India Atmanirbhar in the MedTech Device industry. He firmly believes that with the right Policy and Regulatory framework, India will be among the world’s Top Three producers of Medical Devices very soon.

Transformational Future Wisdom

Gaurav advises budding entrepreneurs aspiring to venture into the MedTech space: India is truly at the cusp of the MedTech revolution. The industry is expected to grow 5-fold from 10 bn USD in 2020 to 50 bn USD by 2025.

He urges, “All budding MedTech entrepreneurs must take the plunge and ensure that we develop import-dependent technologies in the country and ride this economic wave by making the country truly Atmanirbhar.”

Regarding envisioning scaling IITPL’s operations and offerings in 2022 and beyond, Gaurav mentions that IITPL’s growth has been tremendous within four years. IITPL is now the number-2 Cath Lab-selling company in India. Building on the great performance in India, IITPL is currently set to install a dozen Cath Labs in International markets such as Europe and South East Asia.

The product roadmap also has advanced Cath Labs and other diagnostic modalities in India. “Among the upcoming launch is the next-gen Cath Lab on Premier Platform and TAVI Planning Software Solution,” he concludes.