MedTech innovation for Real-World Impact: Bosch Vivaray Story

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00:00:11 ADITYA NATH JHA
Welcome to this edition of India Means Innovation where we discuss the technologically complex innovations coming out of India. Today we have with us Murli Mohan, who is the product manager in the healthcare division of Bosch Global Software Technologies. Welcome, Murli. We are going to discuss this beautiful innovation that has come out of your team that deals with anemia, which is iron deficiency in the blood. And billions of people in the world, especially in the developing world, suffer from it. The current process of checking for anemia involves invasion, a prick, a blood sample, a lab. It takes time for the lab to come back with the report. So what is the innovation that you have come up with?

00:01:11 MURALI MOHAN
Exactly like you said the country, like India, they're close to about 40% people who are anemic. Imagine you have to screen them like the blood draw takes at least a day for you to get a report. Pre comes with the supply chain issue where you need to have those consumables that comes with a shelf life. Right. So if there is solution which you can actually screen people even at the home doorstep, that's the solution that we are talking about. The solution Vivara is completely non invasive. There's no consumable involved. Within just 30 seconds, person is screened for anemia. That's the innovation.

00:01:53 ADITYA NATH JHA
And it's called Vivaray.

00:01:55 MURALI MOHAN
Yes, Bosch Vivaray.

00:01:56 ADITYA NATH JHA
And it's portable, it is noninvasive. And the fundamental technology that you've used is optical spectroscopy.

00:02:05 MURALI MOHAN
Yes.

00:02:07 ADITYA NATH JHA
How did you miniaturize it, being Bosch?

00:02:10 MURALI MOHAN
We have very good capability of optics. We understand electronics. There's lot that we have done actually, given that this kind of solutions are catered for the developing markets, keeping the cost conscious, we have tried to have that spectroscopy actually embedded in such a form factor. So there's a lot of discrete components that is being used to keep the cost low.

00:02:34 ADITYA NATH JHA
So let me show to the viewers what has been achieved. This is the device Bosch Vivare. You can see it's less than six inches long, right? And you just put your finger out here. It is non invasive and in 30 seconds your hemoglobin count can be displayed out here. Can you talk about the sensor fusion technology out here and how you've used AI and ML?

00:03:09 MURALI MOHAN
So it's a solution which is a true amalgamation of different facets of engineering. One is optics, one is spectroscopy that we are talking about. One is AI. This device is powered by AI. And the good thing is the AI is running in the device. You don't need any cloud connectivity.

00:03:27 ADITYA NATH JHA
So that's Edge AI?

00:03:28 MURALI MOHAN
It's Edge AI enabled device. The AI is capable to actually process your PPG.

00:03:35 ADITYA NATH JHA
What is PPG?

00:03:37 MURALI MOHAN
Photoplethysmography, so the working principle is using a spectroscopy, we look at the PPG and there are certain wavelength of light depending on the hemoglobin concentration, amount of light get absorbed actually and we look at the remaining light from the ppg, we extract that information. Machine learning model will look at this pattern and either classify or predict hemoglobin value.

00:04:01 ADITYA NATH JHA
It can also predict your actual hemoglobin count and it is also connected to the cloud. So when it comes to public health management, this data is extremely valuable.

00:04:16 MURALI MOHAN
It is enabled with a digital ecosystem. For example, it has its own mobile app which it can connect to device. But device has ability to work standalone even if there is no connectivity. But this connectivity ecosystem that we have built will enable, like you said, the digital health population. Like you can geotag a particular area and then all the readings there can be pushed and you can have a heat map.

00:04:43 ADITYA NATH JHA
This portable device allows health workers across the country, in rural areas, in primary healthcare centers where you do not have state of the art labs to go and actually test everyone, not just the women, but everyone whether they are anemic or not.

00:05:07 MURALI MOHAN
Exactly. The genesis of this novel solution started there. There's a program called saving child at birth that was a trigger actually which is addressing the pregnant women because they'll have to be screened for anemia, for the healthiness of the baby.

00:05:23 ADITYA NATH JHA
And you have published papers in IEEE peer reviewed journals, you've got what, 20 patents for this and where do you see this going forward?

00:05:34 MURALI MOHAN
As you can imagine, the technology has potential to actually also measure other bionolites which is flowing in your blood and other way if you look at it actually the current solution can also in the long term go sit in your.

00:05:51 ADITYA NATH JHA
Variables also actually so you can miniaturize it to the level that it can sit in your wearables and you'll be working on that dimension as well. But if it is recording all this data, how do you take care of privacy and security? Because medical data is pretty sensitive for everyone and there are compliance and regulation issues surrounding that. So how do you take care of that?

00:06:16 MURALI MOHAN
Being a German company, we adhere to all the GDPR requirements under any data security compliance you can have around the world. So we don't store any patient specific data within the device. Also in our digital ecosystem everything is anonymized. You will not be able to trace back a particular measurement to any patient.

00:06:37 ADITYA NATH JHA
So let me recapitulate what you have done is used optical spectroscopy, sensor fusion, AI ML. You have miniaturized it into this form factor, made it absolutely portable, non invasive, rugged. It doesn't have to depend on consumables, it doesn't have to depend on presence of labs. And do you manufacture it in India?

00:07:07 MURALI MOHAN
Yeah, all of this. And it's designed, conceptualized, designed and will be manufactured in India.

00:07:14 ADITYA NATH JHA
That's the golden trifecta. You know, India is a market. India is the innovation center. India is a manufacturing hub for this innovation. And it's a great example of India means innovation. Congratulations, Munli. It's been wonderful listening to this.

00:07:31 MURALI MOHAN
Thank you.