Aster DM Healthcare is to set up a research centre for the GCC and India in Bangalore.

The Aster Innovation and Research Centre aims to leverage the advances in digital health research like AI, cognitive psychology, blockchain, IOT, behavioural economics etc. and on-board start-ups which can drive innovation.

It will also focus on applied research with universities, startups and industry partners.

Dr Azad Moopen, founder chairman and managing director, Aster DM Healthcare, said: “With evolving patient needs, it is essential to focus on the digital transformation of healthcare because of advances being made in various areas like AI, genomics and molecular biology which is likely to produce a quantum leap.”

Aster DM Healthcare offers services ranging from primary care to quaternary care and has the MIMS Research Foundation in-house research centre as well as a medical college, DM Wayanad Institute of Medical Sciences.

The new research and innovation centre in Bangalore will be headed by the chief of innovation, Dr Satish Prasad Rath, MD, a post-graduate medical doctor and a digital health scientist with multiple patents, with rich experience of leading research and innovation labs at Xerox Innovation Group, Wipro Technologies, Intel labs and Philips Research.

He said: “We will be tapping into the rich evolving entrepreneurship culture of start-ups and academia in a collaborative model whom we can curate and co-create for better future.  Simultaneously we will be preparing the digital health aware/ empowered workforce in collaboration with government and teaching institutions.”