Indian Innovators (11 page)

“One of the fleet owners then asked us if we could make a device that was specifically devoted to Verayu. Since tracking using Verayu does not use the cellphone display, such a dedicated device would not need an LCD screen, and thus, would be even more cost-effective.”

Sriram decided to work on the suggestion. “We spent a few months designing and fabricating the device, eventually named Verayu Yantra. Yantra stands for
Y
et
An
other
Tra
cker, as it is like any other tracking device as far as the hardware is concerned. It is the Verayu software that makes it different. It is the size of a matchbox and houses the SIM card, battery and chipset. It is four times smaller than a GPS device and costs about
2,500. It is so battery-efficient that it can run for two weeks on a single charge. It can also be used by public transport providers.

The location tracking using cell towers is not as accurate as GPS, but it is good enough for most practical purposes except navigation (that is, driving or walking directions). We have tied up with several map agencies to use their geographical information content. Since the system is self-learning, it becomes better as more people use it.

We obtained the Indian patent for PACCT in 2010. We have applied for the PCT in order to obtain patents in several other countries.”

Sriram foresees a bright future for Verayu. “There are so many applications for such a product, especially in supply chain management. It can interest a lot of players in the FMCG and retail industries.

Verayu can also be used for security and asset monitoring. For example, you can position a Verayu enabled cellphone in your home and can take a picture using the cellphone camera via the interface of the cloud-based server, which can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, whether you are in office or on holiday. Moreover, antique or precious pieces of jewelry and artwork can be protected by using a concealed Verayu Yantra or creating a geo-fencing which would give an alert if a violation occurs.”

Sriram speaks about the company’s financial position, in the initial days and now. “Initially, I had to bootstrap the company using my savings. At one time, I had to sell my house to support the activities of the company. At that time, I did not know anything about professional investors. Some of my friends supported me financially during tough times. I cannot thank them enough for their trust. The resolve to return their money pushed me to keep going; otherwise, I could have given up.

I gradually learned about professional investors and started pitching to them. We received our first angel investment in April 2010. We have had four rounds of angel investments so far, totaling $250,000. At the time of the first angel investment, we had just 10 customers; we are now acquiring customers at an average of 55 per week.

Just recently, we closed a $10 million VC funding deal. Raising VC funds proved to be very difficult, despite growing sales revenue and a proven business model.”

Nivaata has now opened up their platform for other applications. “We are giving away the API for free, so that businesses can create their own applications that use our platform to get location information. This is called Location as a Service (LaaS). We charge them a fixed monthly fee based on every application that gets installed.

“In the future, the service can evolve to an extent where you can get notified when a Verayu user nears your establishment. You can then lure him by offering special deals, etc. The global market for such location-based services is expected to cross $10 billion by 2015. We are well positioned to get a good cut of it for ourselves.”

Nivaata is now offering other services as well, like iTransfr™ and sureLock™. iTransfr is a cloud-based contact management suite which keeps a backup of all your contacts and allows you to retrieve them if your cellphone is lost or damaged. sureLock is a lost phone tracker. Nivaata is looking to partner with all major telecom companies to provide tracking services for phones that use their SIM cards.

“So far, it has been a difficult but satisfying journey. We hope to scale greater heights and leave an indelible mark in the technology space. Seeing one’s creation in action is a very pleasant experience. We hope our creations help millions around the globe lead a better life.”

Abhijeet Joshi

Implantable Biosensor for Diabetes Monitoring

Abhijeet was born in Latur, Maharashtra, but was brought up in Ambernath (near Mumbai), where his father worked as a supervisor in an ordinance factory.

Abhijeet had a carefree childhood with little affinity for academics. Most of his time in school was spent playing cricket; he also represented his school in the sport. After he completed Class XII, there ensued a period of confusion, for he did not know what he wanted to do next.

On his father’s insistence, he joined a diploma course in Pharmacy at the University of Mumbai. He did not know much about the subject, but joined the program for the sake of doing something. During the diploma, however, he learned a lot and decided to pursue a career in this field. Because opportunities are limited for diploma holders, he decided to follow it up with a degree course.

Thus, Abhijeet joined the B Pharma program at the University of Mumbai. Years went by rapidly and he appeared for the GATE exam in his final year, obtaining a good score.

This enabled Abhijeet to secure admission in the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER), Mohali, which is the first national-level institute set up by the Government of India for pharmaceutical research and education. It is now an Institute of National Importance and employs eminent faculty in the field of pharmacology in India.

“I changed a lot during my years at NIPER, starting with my shy persona. My fellow students at NIPER came from all parts of the country. Interacting with them was quite enriching. My first brush with research was also at NIPER, where I worked on various aspects of drug delivery and testing. My master’s thesis was on soluble drugs, and by the time I graduated, I already had a research article published on the subject.

After I completed my master’s degree, I received a job offer from Nicholas Piramal. However, my experience at NIPER motivated me to go into more active research. Therefore, I turned down the offer and joined the PhD program at IIT Bombay.

At IIT, I was associated with the Biomedical Engineering Department. It was unlike anything I had done before. I was from a pure pharmaceuticals background and had to learn a lot of things, but my guide always helped a lot.”

As part of his PhD, he started working on an implantable biosensor for blood glucose level monitoring. Little did he know that his achievements over the next few years could have a phenomenal impact on the life of millions of diabetes patients across the world.

Diabetes mellitus or simply diabetes is a condition where the beta cells of the pancreas stop producing sufficient level of the hormone, insulin. Insulin is required for the metabolism of glucose in the body. Thus, the glucose level in the bloodstream rises, and if it is not controlled via external medication, it can cause various complications such as permanent damage to the kidneys and eyes.

Globally, about 250 million people are affected by diabetes. Unfortunately, India is the diabetes capital of the world with almost 50 million diabetes patients; moreover, 11 per cent of the urban population and 3 per cent of the rural population above the age of 15 has diabetes.

In order to control the blood glucose levels in diabetes patients, either oral medication or insulin shots are administered. However, the amount of medication needs to be controlled, because excess medication can lead to hypoglycemia – a drop in blood glucose levels way below the healthy level. Because the human brain uses only glucose for energy, low blood glucose levels can cause a person to faint or even die. Therefore, in diabetes patients, the blood sugar level needs to be monitored regularly to ensure that the medication is neither too high nor too low.

Blood glucose levels are usually measured by using external assaying techniques which require pricking the patients and collecting their blood samples. The idea behind Abhijeet’s work was to find a way to implant a stable, biodegradable sensor in a patient’s subcutaneous tissue, which can then provide the value of his blood glucose level at any time, by using an external, non-invasive probing method.

The work was very challenging on many fronts. “If you put an external substance into the human body, it reacts by producing antibodies against it. This reaction can cause several harmful side-effects. Moreover, the implant should be absolutely sterile and made of a biodegradable material, so that it does not stay in the body forever. Also, the metabolic products that it produces must be non-toxic.”

Abhijeet shares the details of his research. “Glucose oxidase is the enzyme that reacts with glucose and breaks it into products that can be detected and measured. We had to design a matrix (a material in which the enzyme could be encapsulated) which is stable (so that it does not disintegrate too fast in the body) and fulfills all the other conditions.

“After a lot of study and trial-and-error, we finally selected a combination of alginic acid, gelatin and albumin. All of these are naturally occurring, stable proteins, and can easily be injected into the subcutaneous tissue. They also degrade over time without producing any toxins or inviting a response from the immune system.

We then added a fluorescent dye to the matrix, which glows when it is subjected to near-infrared radiation. We decided to use a wavelength of almost 600 nanometers (nm) to irradiate the dye. The human skin hardly absorbs radiations of this wavelength, and thus, we could irradiate the matrix in the subcutaneous tissue. The intensity with which the dye glowed upon irradiation depended on the glucose level in the blood. So, the higher the glucose level, the higher the intensity would be. The intensity can then be measured and the associated blood glucose level ascertained by using the already established calibration curve.”

Abhijeet explains the working of the biosensor. “The glucose oxidase present in the injected matrix constantly reacts with the blood glucose. If the concentration of blood glucose is high, the concentration of the products of this reaction would be high as well, which would make the dye glow more brightly when irradiated with 600 nm radiation. The process of conversion of the intensity of glow to the blood glucose level reading can be automated via an external device.

So, once the matrix is injected, anybody can monitor the blood glucose level at any time by just directing a light beam from the device, without the need for pricking, and decide the amount of medication accordingly. Once injected, the dye-and-enzyme-containing matrix can last for several days. Thus, it need not be injected too frequently.”

He shares the hurdles along the way, technological and otherwise. “The major hurdle was finding a way to prevent the matrix from diffusing into the blood vessel and flowing away with the bloodstream. A lot of effort went into ensuring that this does not happen. After several trials, we put the nanoparticles of the matrix into a microsphere (that is, balls with a diameter of one micron). Nanoparticles can diffuse into the blood, but not micron-sized particles. In order to monitor whether we were successful in preventing the diffusion, we put magnetic nanoparticles on the microspheres and injected them into the subcutaneous tissue of mice. We then subjected the mice to regular MRI scans in order to monitor the position of microspheres. This confirmed that our effort was not in vain.

Next, we had to prove that there were no side-effects. Again, trials were conducted on rats and the results were encouraging. The injected biosensor lasted for a month and did not have any side-effect.

Intellectual Ventures, an IPR-based company (that is, a company that purchases patents and helps in their commercialization), which has a research partnership with IIT-B, helped us with the patent filing process.

When we were nearing the completion of our project, a team from Intellectual Ventures was visiting to review the progress of certain other projects. They came across our work accidentally. They were impressed with what they saw and decided to support it.

There were many hiccups during the development phase. At times, chemicals like high-purity enzymes, which were not available in India, had to be imported and it took longer than anticipated. Sometimes, the work had to be stopped because the funds dried up. However, Intellectual Ventures have been very supportive ever since they joined us. They have a lot of confidence in the commercial viability of the work. So, in the end, our patience and perseverance proved to be the winner.”

The scope of his work is not limited to just diabetes monitoring. The same matrix can be used to encapsulate another enzyme called lactic oxidase, which breaks down lactic acid. Lactic acid is produced in muscles as they work and causes them to “tire”. Embedding lactic oxidase into the injected matrix would help monitoring the lactic acid levels in muscles (like glucose oxidase does for the glucose level in blood). This information can be used to monitor the fitness levels of athletes.

“So, you can monitor the lactic acid levels after, say, an hour of training; or identify the muscles that are tiring faster and need to be strengthened to ensure improved performance.

Also, in the case of heart patients, their heart muscles are weak and should not be strained. Exercise strains heart muscles, and yet, heart patients should exercise to improve their heart function. However, excess exercising can lead to heart failure. Monitoring the lactic acid levels in the heart muscles can be a life saver for heart patients. The moment they reach levels of lactic acid that may be dangerous, they can stop and take rest.”

Abhijeet aims to take his work forward and ensure that the product hits the market soon.

“Currently, we are working to add controlled drug release to the matrix, that is, automated drug release in the right amount at the right time when the biosensor senses the need. This would set diabetes patients absolutely free, with nothing to worry about.”

In 2012, Abhijeet was awarded the Dr Gaargi Bishnoi Award for Best PhD Thesis and was also named as a promising young innovator by MIT Technology Review. He has received the Rapid Grant for Young Investigators (RGYI) from the DBT, Government of India, to further his research as a post-doctoral fellow at IIT Bombay. DBT has also awarded him the Innovative Young Biotechnologist Award (IYBA). He has presented his work at conferences across the world and received a lot of appreciation. It is really worth appreciating his endeavor, which has brought Abhijeet a long way from being a diploma holder in pharmacology to an ace researcher.