Tackling bottlenecks in the blood supply chain in India’s rural areas is vital to remove maternal mortality. Kochi-primarily based Bagmo’s machine screens the temperature of blood baggage, and goals to reduce wastageand improve logistics. Anaemia impacts as many as half of all pregnant women in low-income and middle-earnings countries. In keeping with World Health Organisation, India contributes to about 80 percent of pregnancy-associated deaths because of anaemia in South Asia. And most of those deaths might be prevented with the availability of blood. Enter Kochi-based mostly Bagmo Pvt Ltd, which is working in the direction of prevention of deaths throughout pregnancy on account of non-availability of blood in rural India. Founded in March 2017 by IIT-Madras alumnus Ashfaq Ashraf and his pals, Anas Dalinatakam and Arshad KA, BloodVitals insights the group has developed a blood bag monitoring gadget: Bagmo. The machine displays the temperature of blood baggage throughout transportation and storage. The B2B company aims to reduce wastage at blood storage centres, and BloodVitals insights improve logistics and communication points.
After finishing his MTech in Clinical Engineering, Ashfaq went on to do a fellowship programme in maternal and little one health. This was a Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC) social innovation programme in Odisha. "Blood needed to be transferred from a district hospital 60 km away," he says. In 2017, the corporate received Rs 47 lakh funds from BIRAC, below the biotech ignition grant, and started engaged on the idea. "We collaborated with Christian Medical College, Vellore, to develop the product," Ashfaq says. How does the machine work? Whenever a donor donates blood, real-time SPO2 tracking information is entered in Bagmo's cloud, using an internet application. Once the donated blood has undergone assessments, the three components - plasma, blood cells, and platelets - are separated into bags. A radio-frequency identification (RFID) card is attached to each of these bags. Before the bag is placed into the mother bank or refrigerator, the RFID is scanned utilizing the Bagmo system.
The cloud shops the unique ID and the refrigerator that shops the bag. Next time, at any time when there is a requirement for BloodVitals wearable blood, all the hospital or consumer has to do is enter the small print in the cloud. Bagmo, or the 'Blood bAG MOnitoring' system, will alert the users about which bag is match for use and in which refrigerator it has been stored. Bagmo uses algorithms to store all this knowledge. Currently in pilot stage, the machine can be used to observe blood in a blood bank refrigerator or container. The machine monitors the temperature of each blood bag while it is being transported and saved. Ashfaq, BloodVitals insights 31, had five years of experience of working with corporate hospitals and startups, BloodVitals insights before he began his entrepreneurial journey. He has worked with the Ministry of Health underneath the technical assist of Unicef, as a chilly chain advisor for the vaccination supply chain. Anas beforehand labored in a Research and BloodVitals insights Development Institute for two years, earlier than joining Bagmo.
He is the Technical Head at the corporate. Arshad left the corporate in 2017 as he wished to pursue a master’s diploma. The founding staff also recruited 10 freshers to work for BloodVitals insights Bagmo. Dr Joy Mammen, of Transfusion Medicine at CMC Vellore, mentors Team Bagmo. The startup started its journey in Bengaluru. However, "getting high quality manpower on a restricted funds was a challenge in a metro", Ashfaq says. To unravel this drawback, Bagmo shifted to Kochi and was incubated in Maker Village. Bagmo has received assist from Kerala Development Innovation Strategy Council and CMC Vellore. Bagmo just isn't producing any income at current. "Revenue is expected from selling the device," Ashfaq says. However, BloodVitals SPO2 device he refused to disclose pricing details at this stage. By utilizing Bagmo, each hospital will spend Rs 50 further on each bag. The startup will provide two Bagmo units (one for the mom financial institution and another for the container used for BloodVitals insights transportation) to every hospital together with software utilization licence for a 12 months. The medical machine startup is concentrating on blood banks and blood storage centres initially, BloodVitals SPO2 and can then focus on other industries. According to invest India, the Indian medical gadgets market dimension is anticipated to succeed in $50 million by 2025. Although there isn't any Indian startup competing immediately with Bagmo, a number of international gamers like Biolog ID (France, SATO America, and Terso Solutions (US) have related offerings. Bagmo obtained one other grant this 12 months for conducting pilot research underneath BIRAC’s SBIRI scheme. It's in talks for fairness-primarily based investments with Axilor Ventures.
Certain constituents within the blood have an effect on the absorption of gentle at varied wavelengths by the blood. Oxyhemoglobin absorbs gentle extra strongly in the infrared region than in the purple region, whereas hemoglobin exhibits the reverse behavior. Therefore, highly oxygenated blood with a high focus of oxyhemoglobin and a low focus of hemoglobin will are likely to have a high ratio of optical transmissivity in the purple region to optical transmissivity within the infrared region. These alternating portions are amplified and then segregated by sampling gadgets operating in synchronism with the purple/infrared switching, in order to supply separate indicators on separate channels representing the crimson and infrared mild transmission of the physique construction. After low-pass filtering to remove signal parts at or above the switching frequency, each of the separate indicators represents a plot of optical transmissivity of the physique structure at a particular wavelength versus time. AC part brought about solely by optical absorption by the blood and various at the pulse frequency or coronary heart fee of the organism.