Dr. Priyanka Bajaj works as a specialist in Health Technology Innovations at PATH. She supports and advises on technical, clinical, regulatory, and market access aspects of emerging health technologies to innovators and stakeholders that are key to scale-up and adoption in the health systems.
Dr. Priyanka also supports various cross-disciplinary public health projects at PATH India and other country offices including, the US, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Kenya. She has led the innovations portfolio under several projects, such as the human factors evaluation of Microarray Patches (MAPs) for Measles-Rubella vaccine, usability evaluation of a portable low-field MRI machine, integrated diagnostic solutions for improving access to COVID-19 testing in India, commercial validation pilots of health technology innovations, identifying and deploying technology innovations for strengthened MNCH continuum-of-care, and the ongoing ‘technology for NCDs and Mental health’ activity under the grant from Asian Development Bank.
Dr. Priyanka has been leading PATH’s partnerships with top technology business incubators in India. She has also led five innovation challenges in collaboration with national and global partners and oversees a pipeline of more than 800 innovative technologies from the PATH and partner network. Of these, she has been closely associated with the deployment/feasibility assessment of about 45 innovative technologies to enable scale-up and adoption.
Dr. Priyanka has represented PATH as a Lead Subject Matter Expert at the WHO SEARO platform and contributed to the draft South-East Asia regional roadmap for diagnostic preparedness and integrated regional laboratory networking for health emergencies. She has been an Act-A COVID-19 Country Support Working Group and Task Force Member for COVID-19 Testing Strategies and Policy and Sequencing Marketplace Issues. She has recently joined as an Executive Member of the World Health Innovation Forum Society hosted at Kalam Institute of Health Technology, a WHO Collaborating Centre.
Dr. Priyanka holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Delhi and has published her research in peer-reviewed journals of international repute. Prior to PATH, she worked as a Principal Investigator under the Science & Engineering Research Board of the Department of Science and Technology (Govt. of India). She brings a decade of experience in scientific research, medical devices, molecular testing, and health technology innovation scale-up and integration with public health programs.