Philips Innovation Campus plans to rope in start-ups for healthcare push

Philips Innovation Campus (PIC) Bengaluru is looking to accelerate healthcare solutions by engaging with Indian and global start-ups.

As one of the four global hubs of Philips HealthWorks, the healthcare technology giant’s global start-up collaboration programme, PIC, will be facilitating its third cohort of start-ups starting Spetember 23.

The 12-week , fast-track programme offers entrepreneurs an exclusive, hands-on environment to work to leverage Philips’ 127 years of innovation history and knowledge.

This year’s theme is patient monitoring and health informatics.

Early stage health technology start-ups that are working on new methods of patient monitoring — both inside and outside of the hospital — which can help resolve workflow inefficiencies that lead to patient complications, unwanted clinical variation and high cost will be part of the programme. “When PIC started off 23 years ago, it began with testing and verification of sub-components, then matured to delivering components to sub-systems, to systems, to products, and finally to delivering solutions,” Kalavathi GV, Head, Philips Innovation Campus told BusinessLine.

Providing global solutions

Stating that Philips is into transformation of solutions, she said: “We do this by first understanding customer pain-points and converting them into insights to provide personalised solutions and see it through a lifetime partnership. While PIC Bengaluru has provided quite a few global solutions, we need to accelerate solutions that will work for India, especially in the areas of precision diagnosis, radiology, cardiology, maternal and foetal care.”

In 2018, PIC hosted its second cohort of five start-ups chosen from 1,000 applicants, of which, Predible and Triocula were Indian start-ups, NeuroPhet and Lunit from South Korea and Zed Technologies from Australia .

“We look at mentoring these start-ups and if the start-ups can add value to our suite of solutions, we would explore a deeper relationship with them, ” said Kalavathi.

Potential investment

Philips does not take any equity in the selected start-ups. At the end of the programme, if Philips identifies opportunities for future collaboration with the start-up, it will start a conversation about potential investment in the start-up, co-creation of solutions or go-to-market opportunities.