Date: 26/06/2017

TUV Rheinland India announces partnership with Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone

Product certification and testing services company TUV Rheinland India has partnered with Andhra Pradesh MedTech Zone(AMTZ), the country's first Medical Technology Manufacturing Park, recently established at Visakapatnam over an area of 270 acres by the Govt.of Andhra Pradesh.

As per the terms of the partnership, TUV Rheinland India has been awarded a contract to set up and operate Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI/EMC) including Anechoic Chambers, Biomaterial, Reliability & Electrical Safety Testing Facilities on Public Private Partnership Mode within AMTZ at an estimated investment of about Rs 85 crores over 4-5 years to support AMTZ's objective to reduce medial device imports and production cost, partner with industry to deliver the quality medical devices to local market and eventually increase the export of world class medical devices to the international market.

The contract was signed today by Mr. Thomas Fuhrmann, Managing Director of TUV Rheinland India and Dr.Jitendar Kumar Sharma, Director & CEO of AMTZ. While agreement signing kick-starts a series of technical works, a formal exchange of this agreement is shortly scheduled at a high level event.

The creation of AMTZ is based on the fact that medical devices manufacturing requires very high investment facilities which are capital intensive for individual manufacturers to invest upon. With a market size of close to $4 Billion,78% of medical devices in India are imported from other countries.

AMTZ will house modern 250-300 independent manufacturing units,each over a built-in ready to use area at a very cost effective long-term lease. In addition the park will have in-house high investment scientific facilities,including state-of-the-art testing laboratories, which would help manufacturers significantly reduce the cost manufacturing thereby creating world class diagnosis with quality products accessible to the common man at affordable prices.

"We are honoured that AMTZ has selected TUV Rheinland as its partner to establish testing laboratories within the zone and assist in it's 'Make In India' drive", said Thomas Fuhrmann, Managing Director, TUV Rheinland India. "This is a result of our rich expertise and experience in supporting local and multinational medical device manufacturers in their verification & validation, equipment testing and certification activities."

"TUV Rheinland India has been selected by AMTZ for Operation, Management and Maintenance of Electro-Magnetic Interference (EMI/EMC), Electrical safety & Biomaterial testing laboratories. These laboratories on a high level will have state-of-the facilities for testing of electrical and electronic products including Medical devices for EMI/EMC,Electrical safety and Biomaterial." added Fuhrmann.

"As AMTZ is investing on infrastructure and test equipment, it is evident that TUV Rheinland will have a very special price for the Medical device manufacturers within the zone. Also as these world class test facilities are within the zone, Medical device manufacturers can use the labs that are available in next door. This would reduce the overall product developmental lifecycle, logistics charges and turnaround time to market," said Kalyan Varma, Vice President Products, TUV Rheinland India. " TUV Rheinland along with other scientific labs within the Zone can act as ONE STOP solution for the manufacturers within the zone to have their products tested and certified as per the newly published medical devices rules 2017 which will come into force from 1st Jan 2018."