BETiC owes its origin to OrthoCAD project funded by the Office of PSA to Govt. of India, Dr. R. Chidambaram, during 2007-2010, in which Prof. B. Ravi, IIT Bombay; Dr. Manish Agarwal, then at Tata Memorial Hospital; and Dr. K. Balasubramanian, Director of NFTDC, Hyderabad teamed up to develop an indigenous tumour knee mega-prosthesis system.

In 2009, a feasibility study funded by Rajiv Gandhi S&T Commission of Maharashtra Govt., carried out by MUHS, established the need for setting up a biomedical engineering and technology centre in the state on the lines of SCTIMST, Trivandrum.

In 2013-14, IIT Bombay took up the responsibility to incubate and grow the new centre. The experience gained in OrthoCAD project is now being leveraged to scale up indigenous medical device innovation.

BETiC will facilitate rapid translation of innovative ideas from surgeons into high-quality low-cost medical devices suitable for local population.

Major objectives are to:

Establish an integrated facility

Develop select medical devices

Facilitate translation to industry

Train suitable human resources.

Facilities will include state-of-art labs required for medical device innovation including bio-mechanics, CAD/CAM, rapid prototyping, pilot manufacture, testing, characterization, packaging, and tissue engineering.

Diagnostic devices, surgical instruments and implants across specializations (cardiac, dental, orthopaedics, laparoscopy, etc.) are taken up. Each project follows define-develop-deliver process, involving clinicians, engineers and industry.

BETiC is jointly funded by the State Government of Maharashtra (Rajiv Gandhi S&T Commission) and Central Government of India (Department of S&T), New Delhi.

Main centre of BETiC is located in IIT Bombay, and two sub-centres are established at VNIT, Nagpur and COE, Pune. Each centre is headed by a senior faculty member.

Co-opted faculty in three institutes contribute by advice on device projects and facility sharing.

Steering and Monitoring Committee evaluates the overall progress, mainly through annual meetings.

Collaborations are established with local clinicians (hospitals) and industry partners for each medical project. Other institutes are welcome to replicate the BETiC model.