Translating a concept from a research lab to a solution in the real world takes a lot of ingenuity, perseverance and market knowledge !
Kedar Badnikar, our next pathbreaker, is Founder of Curexel Technologies, a startup committed to the vision of building a painless injection device for patients across all ages, genders and races.
Kedar talks to Shyam Krishnamurthy from The Interview Portal about graduating from IIT Kharagpur (B Tech + M Tech dual Mechanical Engineering degree), taking up GATE in a completely different stream (Instrumentation), and his PhD at IISc Bangalore which led to the inception of Curexel !
For students, whether it is mechanical, electrical, electronics or chemical, engineering is all about research and development focused on problem solving.
Kedar, can you share your background with our young readers?
I grew up in a middle class marathi family in the city of Aurangabad in Maharashtra. I lived there untill my 12th Standard education. Most of my school education happened in Marathi medium, not at a very fancy school. My school at that time had very basic kinds of facilities and used to run mostly on Government grants. I never used to sit and study during my school days. I was quite lazy during that time. I rarely did school homework. I also never attended any additional coaching classes until class 10. Still, I was always above average in marks. My parents used to encourage me to apply for most of the competitive exams in school. I also used to participate in most of the sports events at school, I was okayish there, not a top performer.
Maths was my favorite subject and I rarely even prepared for school exams in maths, and still always managed to score either full or above 90% marks in maths.Seeing that, my father encouraged me to prepare for JEE. My father himself is an engineer and worked in Bajaj Auto for many years. He was aware of the brand IIT at that time and he was probably more confident than I was about me cracking JEE.
Overall, my childhood was in autopilot mode at an average middle class school. I never really had a particular inclination. I think I was bright enough to pull off decent scores despite being lazy. My parents could identify what I was good at and encouraged me to try for an IIT.
What did you do for graduation/post graduation?
I graduated from IIT Kharagpur (B Tech + M Tech dual Mechanical Engineering degree). I graduated from there in 2011. In 2015, I joined the Indian Institute of Science as a PhD student. I completed my doctorate in 2022. During my PhD, I worked on developing a painless injection device. My current association, my startup, is trying to commercialize the same. We are now committed to innovate pain free injection experience for the masses and accelerating rapidly towards our goal.
What were some of the key influences that led you to such an offbeat, unconventional career as a Scientist cum Entrepreneur?
Most students who enter engineering college after 12th are not really aware of what engineering really is. They simply go there with the hope of getting good career opportunities post engineering. That’s the reason we see many engineers shifting their career paths after they graduate, and some students even drop out.
I also had no clue as to what I was going to learn at IIT Kharagpur. I must say, the environment there shaped the most of who (what) I am today. Although, a few may portray that environment as a rat race, the same environment also provides a healthy competition, freedom to explore multidimensional activities, and an opportunity to interact and bond with extraordinary peers, coming from different backgrounds across the country. The idea of India becomes clear as we get to mix with students from all different regions, ethnicity and economic strata. The place provides an opportunity for all-round exposure, for those who want to experience it. In my IIT days, I learned that I was leaning more towards engineering as my career choice. Accordingly, I applied only for core companies in my placements and landed my first job at Finisar, Malaysia as process engineer.
My work there was significantly challenging and I was fortunate to be able to interact with the VP, Global Manufacturing – an IIT Madras alum. Although he handled a much bigger portfolio of responsibilities, whenever there was a critical project run by entry-level engineers (like me), he had the habit of directly interacting with them to have a clear understanding of the ongoing projects instead of going through the hierarchy and getting distorted information. He had mastered the art of extracting the right information from the right person. In the process, I also grew technically, and understood details of how teams and individuals function in a complex ecosystem.
My work there made me learn a few things
- Engineering is engineering, and there is no point in categorizing it as mechanical, electrical, electronics and so on. The foundation is “problem solving” using fundamental theory. During my work there, I got exposure to mechanical machine setups, algorithms and electronics. I could handle all of them well.
- We keep hearing a lot from many people in the industry, that theoretical knowledge and practice differ from each other. I believe that is not absolutely correct. When a difficult problem is to be solved, attacking it by starting from first principles will be the best bet.
After Finisar, I wanted to come back to India. Hence, I joined another company in India as a manager. However, I did not enjoy that work as much as I expected. I would not like to talk about the company or the work I did there.
I had never planned to do a PhD, it simply happened. Boredom at the above company and a need for growing technically got me into thinking whether I should pursue a PhD. But, I chose a slightly non-traditional path. I enrolled for the GATE exam in a branch that was not the same as my engineering degree branch and cracked it. Though I had taken up Mechanical Engineering at IIT, I decided to take up Instrumentation for the GATE exam.The choice was driven by the intention of acquiring knowledge and skills that traditionally belonged to Electronics oriented engineering branches. I was fortunate to be selected at the Department of Electronic Systems Engineering, IISc for a PhD program.
It was self study while continuing to work in my second company. I was driven wild by the thought of cracking the exam in a short time and get out of where I was. As I had mentioned earlier, I had some exposure to electronics during my work years, I wanted to grow my understanding there, hence I put my whole and sole in trying to crack GATE Instrumentation.
For the PhD program, IISc invites students for interviews based on GATE performance and overall CV. I guess my IIT background also must have helped in shortlisting. But ultimate selection depends on how one does in an interview.
Tell us about your career path
The IISc environment is also as wonderful as the IITs, but in a different way. Here, the majority of the students are matured and are focused on one area of interest, as well as academically oriented. Interacting with them made me understand that solving any problem always requires a lot of depth, which can be achieved by attempting to find answers to the most basic questions. The environment here teaches one to break myths, question everything and encourages going deeper to find answers to pressing questions. Academic grind in IISc is much tougher than in IIT. The PhD process at IISc made me a complete engineer and gave me the confidence that I can work on any problem and with some struggle, I may be able to find the solution. The IISc environment is very hectic and makes the student very uncomfortable due to the 24×7 discomfort or struggles involved in finding answers to questions
In IISc, I was lucky to work in the Mechatronics Lab, under Professor N S Dinesh. He is my technical and life Guru as well, a great human being. In his lab, I met my cofounders Shreyas and Vasudha. Since our exploration in the lab resulted in a product (a painless injection device) that could be used by the masses, we decided to venture into entrepreneurship. That is how Curexel Technologies was born.
Our exploration started with a vision of amalgamation of micromanufacturing and electronics, where we wanted to make a microneedle (a minimally invasive needle) integrated with a micropump for drug delivery. During my PhD, I worked on multiple things – hollow, dissolvable microneedles. I got exposure to conventional as well as microfabrication techniques. I also explored a compact micropump concept. One of the works I did during PhD was development of a syringe retrofit microneedle device, manufactured using a stainless steel hypodermic needle. This is the product that we have taken up in our company, which is a completely disposable one (fully mechanical), and hence makes mass utility a feasible approach.
As an entrepreneur, my learnings from here on are going to be a lot different from my learnings as a technical expert. But the habit we have developed of being comfortable with the uncomfortable, gave us the confidence that we can explore this. We are already on the path and hope to benefit the society with our painless injection. Our company is committed to innovating a painless injection experience across all types of injections, we are fast moving towards achieving our goals.
The most common advice to aspiring students is, “do what you like”. However, most students do not know “what they like”. I believe it is a discovery process that evolves by rejecting “what you don’t like”. Over the years, I kept rejecting what I did not like and ended up with Curexel as a founder of a startup.
Broadly speaking, my career path is
IIT engineer – > Technical job – > Managerial job – > PhD from IISc – > Entrepreneur
Everyone’s interests change over time and everyone starts feeling saturated at some point in time. Both my transitions were driven by two factors. 1. Boredom in the current work 2. What is the new thing I want to experience in the only life that I have. Factor 2 is an important and driving factor.
Prior to my thirties, I did not think about money before making any transition. However, the third and slightly important factor after one hits thirties is the finances, especially after marriage or having kids. Now, I have to think about the money I may make/ lose due to the transition.
As an entrepreneur, I decided to give myself a limited time, determined by family constraints, to make an honest attempt. We are somewhat successful in that attempt and still going forward, and hope to make it big soon. My parents and my spouse have been very supportive in the journey.
How did you get your first break?
I already wrote about my first job above. But we are working on our venture Curexel which I believe is our biggest break yet.
What were some of the challenges you faced? How did you address them?
Challenge during job: – It’s not easy to work in a team, especially when all the players come from different backgrounds with different strengths, weaknesses, timelines and especially egos. Many times one has to wait for someone else to deliver when they themselves are on stringent timelines. Clarity in communication and managing personal relationships require the necessary soft skills to be able to navigate through tricky situations while working in a team.
Challenge during PhD: – PhD is tough, and a lot depends on the problem statement, available facilities to do your research, and most importantly the guide. I was fortunate to have been guided by Prof N S Dinesh. He gave me ample freedom to explore new ideas, engaged with me in many insightful discussions and provided me with the environment and necessary funding to be able to pursue the work in a systematic manner. Technical challenges during PhD are plenty. One needs dedication and passion to continuously question and find answers to them.
Challenge as an entrepreneur: Essential element of entrepreneurship is a financial risk involved in the process. One can’t be assured of success. Entrepreneurship is more of a lifestyle choice than a mode of making huge cash. This realization takes time to be imbibed into the mind of a newcomer. One has to learn everything by overcoming hardships and making many many sacrifices. Entrepreneurship involves challenges on all fronts – family and relationships, technical, administrative, finances, etc. to count a few. Sheer determination to continuously move forward is a way to tackle this, only until the finances for the family are taken care of.
Where do you work now?
Currently, I am the founder of a startup Curexel Technologies pvt ltd. @ Curexel, we are building a painless injection device. We are committed to innovating a painfree injection experience for all the patients across all ages, genders and races. Our product will soon begin the regulatory journey and we are expecting to hit the market in about 1 year from now.
As a company, our vision is to make all the injections painless. Hence, all places that administer injections (clinics, hospitals, diagnostics chains) are our customers. We are going to operate in the B2B segment. We are starting our journey with injections meant for intradermal drug delivery – which involves a few vaccines and skin testing applications. We are also exploring painless local anesthesia administration using our device followed by painless blood draw using routine procedure. Our device has opened doors for painless blood collection @ home and in line with the same, we are in talks with diagnostic chains/ clinics to explore this with us.
Our device being painless, offers an opportunity to our customers to provide value added service to their customers. Currently, our device design is ready and next 1 year will be spent in regulatory approvals and clinical trials.
What are the key skills needed for your role? How did you acquire them?
For building a good product that functions as desired, one needs good engineering skills. I have been honed and sharpened during my tenure at the Mechatronics lab at IISc. As an entrepreneur, the required skill set is much wider. One needs to have an eye for the market, identify relevant network connections, communicatewith them regularly, cultivate perseverance, etc.
What’s a typical day like?
My typical day as an entrepreneur mostly goes in conversations which may lead to getting more clarity on the business we operate in. The founders discuss, argue and settle on the issues every day. We are very outward focused, hence we keep conversing with stakeholders in our ecosystem – Doctors, Hospitals, Diagnostic Chains, Investors, Distributors, etc. Through these conversations, we gain understanding of the market dynamics, which in turn helps in building the vision for the company.
I love that I am trying to build a business around the product which is my own creation. If we succeed, something I developed will benefit the masses, which provides a sense of satisfaction, bigger than money. Also, as a part of this job, my conversational and communication skills are improving, which will help me in my future endeavours.
How does your work benefit society?
It’s not an unknown thing that injection pains. It is an uncomfortable procedure that no one likes. Almost 10% of the population is terribly afraid of needles and they try to avoid injections as much as possible. This also affects their compliance towards life saving vaccinations. A painless solution for this will provide comfort to such people and in the process, our technology will improve the overall health and wellbeing of the society.
Tell us an example of a specific memorable work you did that is very close to you!
The most memorable project for me is the one which resulted in the development of a painless injection device. The development involved deep scientific analysis of many things. It took us more than 20 designs – > Manufacturing – > Testing iterations until we settled on a design that is reliable, user friendly and commercially viable. We are building our deeptech startup Curexel Technologies on the foundation of the shallow depth penetration (painless) technology platform which I immensely worked on.
Your advice to students based on your experience?
Most students do not know “what they really like”. The likes or dislikes can only be discovered, once someone experiences them. It is very similar to learning all different subjects in the school syllabus. Not a single student likes all the subjects. Someone likes maths, someone likes science, someone likes history and so on. The student who likes maths, does so only because he got compulsorily exposed to maths as a part of the school syllabus. Hence, prior to entering professional life, it would be wise to explore as many different things as possible and keep rejecting the things that you do not like. Automatically, you may stabilize into something that you may want to stick around for a longer time.
Future Plans?
To grow Curexel!