Driving through Bangalore’s Whitefield, it’s easy to miss MediVed Innovations’ office tucked away in a corner building. It looks dwarfed by its more glamorous neighbours — the campuses of India’s IT biggies. But there’s something about the work it does that makes the tech revolution pale in comparison.

MediVed’s facilities make pacemakers, which while in existence for years, have been difficult to produce. A pacemaker goes through over 50 processes and is a complex system of wires and polymer components which power the human heart for many years.“The scope for error is zero. A pacemaker just cannot stop working or malfunction else the patient will die,” says Dinesh Puri, chairman, MediVed, which develops active implantable devices and diagnostic devices for cardiac rhythm disorder, a frequent cause of heart attacks. Ask Rita Chakravarty who had to undergo emergency surgery to get a pacemaker fixed in her heart. Her husband had lost his job in the slowdown and she worried about the cost of the operation — Rs.300,000.

“I was taken by surprise when my surgeon told me that the pacemaker would cost around Rs.40,000 only,” she says. That was less than a seventh of what an imported pacemaker would have come for. MediVed is among a clutch of mid-sized Indian companies, which includes Trivitron Healthcare and Opto Circuits, who are taking on global leaders like Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific and Hologic, with affordable alternatives to life-saving medical equipment. A mix of backward integration, technological competence and smart acquisitions, is making them tick.

Opto Circuits operates out of Electronic City. This BSE and NYSE listed company has grown to Rs. 8.18 billion in the last decade from Rs. 190 million, making devices like stents and through acquisitions both in India and Europe. Chairman Vinod Ramnani says, “Until now we sold ‘non-invasive’ medical devices like electronic patient monitors and medical sensors that make up three-quarters of our business. But it’s the new ‘invasive’ products line — which includes stents and balloons — that holds promise.” So how have Indian medical device makers managed to crack this tough business? Globally, demand for cardiac pacemakers has been rising.

The U.S. produces half of the world’s medical devices and consumes approximately 40 percent of the world’s output. Indian manufacturers have leveraged cost advantage and class quality at affordable prices. Opto, for instance, makes most of its monitors and sensors at its Indian facilities in Bangalore, Visakhapatnam, Chennai and Himachal Pradesh, where production costs are lower. It also pays zero taxes due to its Export Oriented Units (EOU) status. MediVed hired top class professionals from bigger rivals and also from Indian Space Research Organisation.

“We got the talent to produce the devices, and at the same time regulated the costs,” says Puri. Imports of medical equipment and supplies by India were valued at around $12 billion in 2007. “This can be reduced when domestic products are used,” says Puri, whose company plans to make Rs. 1.5 billion by next year. At present, most of them are looking to capture the lucrative western Europe and U.S markets. And also South East Asia.

Tata Teleservices (TTSL) today became the first service provider to offer mobile TV on high speed broadband wireless by launching Photon TV, which allows users to access channels on desktops and laptops. The service initially offers 40 channels via a Photon Plus data card (which offers maximum speeds of 3.1 mbps, 20 times faster than what is available on a mobile) covering news, sports, entertainment, children's entertainment and some key regional offerings. In the next three months, the plan is to ramp up the number of channels on offer to 90. Photon TV will allow Tata Photon Plus post-paid users to view a near-live TV feed — there's an eight- to 10-second delay.

Current Photon Plus subscribers will have to download an application to access the service. The company has tied with Apalya Technologies, which aggregates the content and provides it to TTSL. The technology company has agreements with broadcasters on a revenue-share basis. Some mobile service companies like Reliance Communications (which offers 34 channels on the CDMA platforms) also offer mobile TV with a delay of 30 seconds but the quality is limited by the fact that they are on a 2G platform, where speeds are limited to a maximum of 145 kbps. The service, however, is not cheap. The unlimited offer, for instance, leaves little capacity for data usage for normal internet access.

In comparison, a new direct-to-home (DTH) connection at Rs 1,500 plus a six month package of channels free is still cheaper. DTH also allows users to pay only about Rs 250 a month for accessing over 140 channels — though it does not have the advantage of mobility. TTSL so far has half a million users of Photon broadband cards. “We have 40 per cent market share in the data card segment and hope to encash our existing customers to use TV. Also it will enhance data usage,” says chief marketing officer Lloyd Mathias. Competitors have varying opinions on the service. Says Jawahar Goel, managing director of Dish TV, “There is a market for such a service in offices where people do not have access to TV. Only news, business and cricket channels will work in this format, however. Broadcasters, of course, will be happy because they get additional revenue.” TTSL direct competitors say the offer is not attractive.

“Users have to pay a huge bill for using data since the content is data-heavy. We don't think there will be enough customers for such a service,” says a senior executive of a leading telecom company that also sells broadband wireless data cards. Anil Ambani-controlled Reliance Communications, for instance, is tying up with hungama.com to offer music videos on the broadband card that it sells for only Rs 100 a month. Sources say consumers using their data card would be able to access to over 50,000 titles at a nominal price. Meanwhile, broadcasters offering content on the TTSL platform say there are limits to what they can give. Says a senior ESPN executive: “Effectively it can be a tournament or a match but the not the entire channel as available on cable or DTH”.