Context: India fell six spots to the 32nd place in the global coronavirus innovation rankings for countries

• The report has been prepared by StartupBlink in association with Health Innovation Exchange, UNAIDS.

Key highlights from the report

• The report features the top-ranked 40 countries and 100 cities in the world based on innovative solutions developed to face the pandemic.
• The US remains on top of the list this year as well, with 405 mapped Covid-related innovations and five of its cities listed in the top 100.
• The UK has 50 mapped innovations, and it continues to stay in the sixth spot with two of its cities listed in the top 100.
• China has slid two spots this year to the 15th rank.
• These rankings are for innovations made specific to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The rankings also take into consideration the population of the country – so the expectations from countries with relatively lower population are adjusted when comparing with countries that have a larger population.
• The innovations are segmented into different categories such as prevention (vaccine, protective and sanitation, automation, etc), diagnostics (telehealth diagnostics, big data and profiling, test kits, etc), treatment (telehealth treatment, ventilator and medical devices, medication, etc) etc.

India Specific highlights

• India has two cities featured – Bengaluru, 49th rank, New Delhi, 55th rank – among the top 100 .

India has 15 Covid-related innovations mapped this year

1. Four in ‘prevention’
2. Three in ‘grants and support initiatives’
3. One in ‘information’
4. Three in ‘treatment’
5. Four in ‘diagnostics’

Among the most notable innovations from the country are OneBreath for treatment (ventilator and medical devices), CareMother for diagnostics (telehealth diagnostics) and Serum Institute of India for prevention (vaccines).

• The number of innovations from India, however, is much lower when compared to the likes of the US, the UK and China.