In April 2026, GrowMedTech founder Seema Banerjee joined a Netherlands-India MedTech innovation mission organized by the Rijksdienst voor Ondernemend Nederland (RVO), the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, travelling to India to engage directly with the country's medtech innovation and regulatory ecosystem and to identify concrete openings for collaboration on both sides. The Dutch delegation was deliberately wide-ranging, bringing together policymakers and funders, Oost NL and Health Holland, academic and clinical partners including UMC Utrecht, the TechMed Centre, Delft University of Technology (TU Delft), Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), and the University of Twente, and a broader group of Dutch corporates, MSME representatives, and ecosystem enablers, including GrowMedTech. That range, from universities and clinical centres to regional and national organizations, made the discussions in India considerably richer and signalled a shared, long-term intent rather than a one-off visit.
Engaging India's MedTech Ecosystem
The mission opened with meetings at BIRAC (Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council), CDSCO (Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation), and ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research), an early, direct view into how India funds early-stage biotech and medtech innovation, how its medical device regulator is evolving, and how its apex medical research body is approaching translational research. From there, the group met with IIT Delhi (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi) for a roundtable on accelerating medtech innovation through cross-border programmes and on how both ecosystems could better leverage each other's academic and research expertise. A further roundtable at AIIMS Delhi (All India Institute of Medical Sciences) brought in doctors and other stakeholders from across the clinical ecosystem. The mission then moved through a series of engagements, including IKP Knowledge Park, St. John's Medical College Hospital, AIG Hospitals, and an MSME Technology Business Incubator (TBI), each offering a different lens on India's innovation, clinical, and startup landscape, before closing with meetings at C-CAMP (Centre for Cellular and Molecular Platforms) and with the state governments of Karnataka and Telangana, connecting the ecosystem-level conversations back to state policy.
Across every stop, the conversations brought together innovators, policymakers, clinicians, and investors, each looking at the same question from a different vantage point.
Delegates and hosts at IIT Delhi (Indian Institute of Technology Delhi).
AIIMS Delhi (All India Institute of Medical Sciences): a roundtable discussion with doctors and other stakeholders from the clinical ecosystem.
Delegates in a meeting with the Government of Telangana.
A Two-Way Conversation
What stood out was how genuinely two-directional the conversations were, not a one-way pitch of Dutch technology into India, but an exchange of priorities. India's speed, scale, and frugal innovation models and the Netherlands' deep expertise in regulatory science, clinical research infrastructure, and evidence generation surfaced repeatedly as natural complements. Delegates discussed cross-border validation, regulatory alignment, and how earlier collaboration between Indian and Dutch teams, particularly on evidence strategy and clinical partnerships, could shorten the distance between a good idea and an approved, adopted product in either market.
Momentum at the Highest Level
The mission was followed within weeks by Prime Minister Modi's state visit to the Netherlands, where Banerjee attended his address. Seeing the mission's working-level conversations echoed at the highest diplomatic level was a reminder that the India-Netherlands relationship is being built deliberately, from ecosystem-level exchange all the way up to head-of-state engagement.
What This Means for GrowMedTech
For GrowMedTech, the mission was as reassuring as it was informative. The questions raised in nearly every meeting, how to align regulatory evidence across India and Europe, how to move faster from clinical validation to market adoption, and how to structure partnerships that work in both directions, are the same questions GrowMedTech was built to help answer. Seeing regulators, research institutions, hospitals, incubators, and policymakers on both sides converge around the same priorities reaffirmed the thesis at the heart of our work. It is a conviction that will directly shape how GrowMedTech supports companies navigating both ecosystems in the months ahead.
