By Smridhi Uppal

In an interaction with EThealthworld, Mr. Chetan Makam, Managing Director, Terumo Penpol Pvt. Ltd talks about how Covid19 has affected the essentials industry in carrying out new normals with respect to terms of supply and demand.

How has the covid-19 pandemic impacted the healthcare sector?The healthcare sector has various segments; delivery of patient care, medical devices, pharma etc. and each of them has been affected in different ways.

TerumoBCT specializes in the manufacturing of medical equipment, particularly equipments used in blood and cell collections. The need for blood never diminishes as patients need blood and blood components for a variety of treatments such as oncology, sickle cell disease, maternal and child health related intervention and for emergency surgeries.

In India, ICMR has initiated a multi-center clinical trial, titled A Phase II, Open Label, Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess the Safety and Efficacy of Convalescent Plasma to Limit COVID-19 Associated Complications in Moderate Disease. (PLACID Trial). About 35 centers across India are approved for the trials and we are supporting several of them.

What are the major investments that TerumoBCT is continuing to make?

We at Terumo Penpol conduct a couple of hundred blood donation drives and promote voluntary blood donation (VBD). Our CSR activities include support for various organizations working in Thalassemia, Hemophilia as well as in stem cell donations.

Terumo is an established company in Kerala. We continue to invest both in the well-being of our associates and in high quality medical devices that support the demands of the local market and in fact, the world. The reliability of the local supply chain, products from our facility make their way around the globe to meet essential healthcare needs.

Terumo Penpol was the first medtech company chosen to participate in the Japan-India Institute of Manufacturing (JIM) program. Overseen by the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, JIM was borne out of PM Narendra Modis request to his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe for support to scale up industrial work skills among Indian youth. Our participation contributes to the Skill India, Make in India and Ayushman Bharat initiatives.

We have invested over the past few years in a comprehensive and established Business Continuity Policy, designed to safeguard associates around the world and ability to deliver products worldwide. Guided by this policy and social responsibility to healthcare, we are committed to providing continuous support to customers so they can continue their business operations during critical events as they rely on the quality of products and the services we provide.

How has your company contributed to combating this pandemic?We continue to operate our factories and provide products and services to our customers globally as they depend on us to collect blood, cells and now plasma, while ensuring that our employees are working in safe conditions.Our parent company, Terumo Corporation, has donated USD 2.4 million in cash and products to support COVID-19 relief efforts worldwide including a USD 1 million donation to the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund for WHO. The Solidarity Response Fund supports research and development of new therapies and vaccines, global response to the pandemic, such as tests and personal protective equipment, and education and communication efforts to protect individuals against the infection.

Terumo BCT specifically, focused on unlocking the potential of blood and cells and to the contributing solutions that can have an impact now to fight against COVID-19. In the current context, our products are uniquely placed to cater to various medical interventions. We have a product for convalescent plasma collection, which provides passive immunity to patients with COVID-19 and may help preventing infection in high risk groups, such as healthcare workers. Our Pathogen Reduction Technology system is already being used in many countries to add a layer of safety in blood transfusion and recently for convalescent plasma.

Similarly, we have also a product to help treat respiratory failure in adult patients with confirmed COVID-19. The treatment reduces pro-inflammatory cytokine levels, which cause cytokine storm. The cytokine storm that occurs in some COVID-19 patients, leads to severe inflammation, rapidly progressive shock, respiratory failure, organ failure and death.

What are your expectations from the government?The local government in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala has provided us with the permissions to operate as an essential industry. Given the treatments and technologies that we can bring to serve more patients, having a process with the regulators to provide emergency use authorization would be a plus. Expedited approvals for products made at multiple locations to ensure business continuity. Relief on import duties on products for the duration of the COVID restrictions to offset the cost of increased freight. Governments can also help by paying outstanding dues immediately.

How do you think this crisis will affect the balance sheets of firms?The key for many companies will be to devise ways to conserve cash as it will allow them to be flexible and respond better to the changing scenarios. its the time to reduce 1 percent from the CSR activities and conserve money for investing tomorrow, by authorizing 2 percent from it.

What are the challenges do you see in Make in India? I am glad to see that the Government of India is bringing in policies to make India a manufacturing hub for medical devices. What is encouraging is that the government is emphasizing on the need for the products to be at par with international standards so that it can cater to the domestic as well as overseas markets. This is indeed a progressive outlook and need to be applauded. One area which needs to be addressed is absence of skilled labour to support domestic/local manufacturing of medical devices.

Hence skilling of labour force is necessary. Another area where there has been a lacuna in most cases is absence of collaborative approach wherein government, private sector and academia join forces for better outcome. However, in the fight against COVID- 19, Indias mitigation response has seen collaborative research and innovation.

Indian Government, academia, and the private sector have come together to bring in pioneering solution. Following this triple helix approach even in the long-term (post-COVID) would benefit the medical device players as well as the customers as it brings together capabilities and resources to solve common problems more efficiently. For the government, it helps address healthcare challenges through innovative and cost-effective approaches.

ICMR has initiated a multi-center clinical trial, titled A Phase II, Open Label, Randomized Controlled Trial to Assess the Safety and Efficacy of Convalescent Plasma to Limit COVID-19 Associated Complications in Moderate Disease. (PLACID Trial). About 35 centers across India are approved for the trials and we are supporting several of them. Hence, it is important to take forward this very important learning from the pandemic and MNCs and local manufacturers should work in tandem to bring in effective solutions to address healthcare challenges in India and globally.

Tell us something about the latest developments and global trends in medical devices associated with blood industry? Spectra Optia apheresis system has seen interesting developments recently. In Covid-19 patients, it aims reduce the number of cytokines and other inflammatory blood proteins that control a cells immune response, filtering the blood and returning it to the patient. The proteins that are removed are typically elevated during infections and can be associated with a cytokine storm that occurs in some COVID-19 patients, leading to severe inflammation, rapidly progressive shock, respiratory failure, organ failure and death.

Another interesting development has been that researchers have established that exposing the novel coronavirus to the vitamin riboflavin and ultraviolet light decreases the viral count in human plasma and whole-blood products, a development that may help lower the possibility of transmission of the virus via blood transfusion. The scientists from Colorado State University (CSU) in the US, has still not been able to decipher if SARS-CoV-2 could be transmitted by blood transfusion. However, it is an interesting development to watch for. The device used is the Mirasol Pathogen Reduction Technology System which has been developed by us.

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Covid19: Increase in centers moving to collect convalescent plasma is creating a new demand says Chetan Mak.. - ETHealthworld.com