The Swedish Trade Commissioner's Office, in collaboration with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in New Delhi and Jodhpur, announced launch of the India-Sweden Healthcare Innovation Centre in India.
The announcement was made at the India-Sweden Business Summit in the presence of Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf and Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, and her Swedish counterpart Ibrahim Baylan, as per an official statement.
The signing of the Memorandum of Intent took place at the event to mark 10 years of India-Sweden health cooperation. Others present were Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan and his Swedish counterpart Maja Fjaestad.
AIIMS Delhi was represented by Director Randeep Guleria, and AIIMS Jodhpur by Director Sanjeev Misra, while Sweden was represented by Swedish Trade Commissioner to India Anders Wickberg.
AstraZeneca board Chairman Leif Johansson said: "AstraZeneca is honoured to partner with AIIMS and the Swedish Trade Commissioner's Office to further innovation in healthcare."
The centre will mainstream digital, scalable and affordable healthcare solutions for early diagnosis and digital intervention in the management of NCDs such as diabetes and cancer, "a shared challenge for India and Sweden".
Swedish Trade Commissioner Wickberg said: "The broad vision of the collaboration is to strengthen the healthcare delivery system by an outcome and result-based approach."
AIIMS Delhi Director Guleria said: "AIIMS Delhi is at the forefront of using innovation to improve therapeutics and translate science insights into new treatments. The India-Sweden Innovation Centre collaboration will further strengthen our efforts in finding innovative solutions for affordable and accessible healthcare in India".
The Centre is envisaged to develop an ecosystem of open innovation that healthcare delivery stakeholders can use to collaborate and address current and future challenges in the healthcare sector in India, the statement said.
King Gustaf separately chaired a dialogue on circular economy approaches in India, along with Swedish and Indian senior government officials, as well as academic, private sector and non-governmental organisations.
The key objective was to highlight current initiatives underway towards tackling the issues of air pollution and waste in India. Some Indo-Swedish partnerships that are introducing innovative technologies like for monitoring air pollution, mitigating carbon emissions, and products made from biomass waste were also featured.
( With inputs from IANS )