Tata Trusts launches 'Impact lab' for public health

Tata Trusts and PATH announced the establishment of the Tata Trusts-PATH Impact Lab, the first such in India, to support and bring to market innovations for affordable public health solutions to benefit vulnerable populations with limited resources.

Among the priorities will be solutions in maternal and child health, nutrition, and diagnostics for chronic and infectious diseases.

The Impact Lab's aim is to create and sustain an ecosystem that fosters innovation in public health and provides comprehensive support to selected innovators through product design, clinical validation, commercialisation and market development to help scale high quality and affordable public health innovation products that have gone beyond the prototype stage.

This support will include, amongst others, infrastructure for product development through a high-end "tinkering shop" located at the Indian Institute of Technology-Delhi, mentorship for market access and commercialisation, and launch and scale-up strategies, according to a press statement.

The Impact Lab will proactively source solutions, in chosen areas, with the potential to improve the healthcare of poor and resource challenged communities at scale.

Manoj Kumar, Tata Trusts' head innovation, entrepreneurship and institutions, said, "This partnership of Tata Trusts and PATH will allow innovators to leverage the strength of both the organisations in the area of public health through a world class incubation lab designed to orchestrate the 'Lab to Market' journey of innovations. Last year we created our Social Alpha architecture as part of our overall strategy to promote innovation and entrepreneurship for social impact."