Mumbai, November 23, 2020: India Health Fund (IHF), a Tata Trusts initiative, and Villgro Innovations Foundation (VIF), one of the world’s largest social enterprise incubators, today announced the launch of a first-of-its-kind collaborative platform -- I4ID - Innovate for the fight against Infectious Diseases. The collaboration will support the development of affordable, point-of-care health technologies and digital innovations to prevent, control, and eliminate infectious diseases and supplement India’s efforts to prevent future pandemics.
With the I4ID platform the aim is to co-create an innovation programme to identify technology-driven solutions that tackle infectious diseases. Both IHF and Villgro will collaborate with a consortium of partners with the right expertise to nurture innovations from proof of concept to last mile delivery; through mentorship, incubation, market access and enabling in catalysing funds and resources to develop and deploy selected innovative solutions.
While COVID-19 has led to 9 million cases in India, TB cases touched 2.6 million in 2019, accounting for 27 percent of the world’s TB burden, and malaria cases in India accounted for four percent of the world’s malaria burden1. A WHO report2 stated 700,000 people die, every year, globally, from drug-resistant infections or AMR (Anti-Microbial Resistance), including 230,000 deaths from multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB). According to another WHO report3, there is a dearth of innovations to combat AMR due to reasons such as market failure and long timeline for research on drugs and vaccines development. One of the strategic priorities of the National AMR action plan is to promote investments for AMR activities, research, and innovations.
In line with this, IHF and Villgro are joining forces to launch the I4ID platform, around the World Antimicrobial awareness week to put the spotlight on the global antimicrobial resistance and highlight the need for better preparedness for large-scale outbreaks and pandemics in the future. The platform will support startups in developing innovations, such as high-quality rapid diagnostics, to prevent and contain the spread of infectious diseases, including TB, malaria, vector-borne diseases, and COVID-19 among others in congruence with Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan recently reiterating the need for social entrepreneurship in India’s fight against infectious diseases4.
Commenting on the collaboration and the platform, Mr. Madhav Joshi, CEO, India Health Fund, said, “We’re bringing together complementary focus areas of both the ogranisations to co-develop the innovations across stages. While Villgro supports innovations from proof-of-concept ready stage till the development of a prototype ready for initial pilot, IHF supports innovations which have a ready prototype and initial pilot data to enable their validation, regulatory approvals, market entry and scale up. With Villgro as a partner, we’ve found this combined synergy to bring forth a platform like I4ID.”
Mr. Srinivas Ramanujam, CEO, Villgro Innovations Foundation, said, “Over the past two decades, we have supported innovative social enterprise models that can sustainably create impact at scale; working with them to help convert their prototypes into market ready products. In our efforts to tackle the ever- growing challenges of infectious diseases and AMR, we found the perfect collaborator in IHF to help democratize innovations and make primary healthcare more accessible.”
The collaborative effort will involve Villgro supporting innovations from proof-of-concept ready stage till the development of a prototype ready for initial pilot, and subsequently, IHF will support innovations which have a ready prototype and initial pilot data to enable their validation, regulatory approvals, market entry and scale up.
The partnership will co-create solutions with a special focus on three core areas:
- Screening and Diagnostics of Infectious Diseases
- Infection Control
- Antimicrobial Resistance
Both IHF and Villgro will work towards creating a programme offering for innovators and start-ups, as well as reach out to potential funders and investors.
1https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/world-malaria-report-2019
2https://www.who.int/news/item/29-04-2019-new-report-calls-for-urgent-action-to-avert-antimicrobial-resistance-crisis 3http://origin.searo.who.int/india/topics/antimicrobial_resistance/amr_containment.pdf
4https://pib.gov.in/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=1673854
About India Health Fund:
India Health Fund is a collaborative initiative seeded by Tata Trusts and the Global Fund, conceived to:
- Accelerate India’s progress towards the elimination of infectious diseases in line with the objectives of the Government of India and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), by identifying and supporting the development of breakthrough solutions which help accelerate eradication of these diseases.
- Aggregate funds and deploy resources to finance the development of these solutions to enable better outcomes in diagnosis, treatment, control, and monitoring of infectious diseases.
- Collaborate with the public and private sectors to develop and scale up new solutions, business models and financing mechanisms. For details see: http://www.indiahealthfund.org/
One of the oldest and the world’s largest social enterprise incubators, Villgro was recently awarded the ‘Top Incubator’ Award by Startup India and DPIIT. Villgro creates impactful, innovative, and successful enterprises in Health, Agribusiness, and Clean Energy. Since 2001, Villgro has supported over 300 social enterprises that have raised over INR 4,164 million in investments and impacted over 20 million lives. Apart from India, Villgro also has a presence in the USA, Kenya, and the Philippines.
Since inception in 1892, Tata Trusts, India’s oldest philanthropic organisation, has played a pioneering role in bringing about an enduring difference in the lives of the communities it serves. Guided by the principles and the vision of proactive philanthropy of the Founder, Jamsetji Tata, the Trusts’ purpose is to catalyse development in the areas of health, nutrition, education, water, sanitation and hygiene, livelihood, digital transformation, migration and urban habitat, social justice and inclusion, environment and energy, skill development, sports, and arts and culture. The Trusts’ programmes, achieved through direct implementation, partnerships and grant making, are marked by innovations, relevant to the country. For more information, please visit
