The central government think tank NITI Aayog has unveiled the blue print of National Health Stack (NHS), a shared digital healthcare infrastructure. The blue print is in line with the implementation of the Centre’s flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat and other public healthcare programmes in the country.

The government’s flagship scheme Ayushman Bharat aims to provide a coverage of INR 5 Lakh per family annually and benefit more than 10 crore poor families. The Aayog has invited comments from all stakeholders on the consultation paper. The stakeholders can send their comments by August 1, 2018.

According to a consultation paper titled ‘National Health Stack Strategy an Approach’, the National Health Stack will facilitate collection of comprehensive healthcare data across the country.

This will allow policy makers to further build their projections around upcoming outcomes, experiment with new services as well as fill the existing gaps in the Indian healthcare industry among others.

National Health Stack: New Hope Of The Indian Healthcare

According to the consultation paper, National Health Stack will provide foundational components that will be required across ‘Ayushman Bharat’ and other health programmes in India.

The components include national health electronic registries, a coverage and claims platform, a federated personal health records framework, a national health analytics platform among others.

It will also provide a mechanism through which every user participating in the system can be uniquely identified.

Other Key Benefits Of NHS

• allow states to incorporate horizontal and vertical expansion of scheme,
• avoid duplication of efforts
• enable ease of adoption for those without systems or with dysfunctional systems in place,
• continue using their own state system while integrating with Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Mission (RSSM) via Application Programming Interface (APIs),

“The stack will embrace health management systems of public health programs and socio-demographic data systems. The registrant may create a virtual health ID to preserve their privacy when interacting with other users or stakeholders in the system,” the paper said.

Once implemented, it is expected that National Health Stack will significantly “bring down the costs of health protection, converge disparate systems to ensure a cashless and seamlessly integrated experience for the poorest beneficiaries, and promote wellness across the population, it added.

[The development was reported by Money Control.]

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Global ecommerce behemoth Amazon, which has been looking at 360-degree expansion of its portfolio, is ready to dive into the Indian healthtech market and is eyeing acquiring online pharmacy MedPlus.

According to reports, talks between Amazon and Medplus are in the preliminary stage. A source close to the matter was reported as saying that it’s too early to call it a deal, but it is confirmed that “Amazon is serious about building a definitive pharmacy play in India.”

Another source revealed that Amazon is in active conversations with “at least two pharma chains” for potential acquisitions. The source confirmed that one of them is Medplus.

An email query sent to Amazon didn’t elicit any response till the time of publication.

On the international front, Amazon has already made a bet on healthtech and ventured into the pharmaceuticals market by acquiring PillPack, an online pharmacy, for about $1 Bn.

Amazon also hired renowned Harvard surgeon and writer Atul Gawande as the chief executive of its healthcare joint venture with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan.

MedPlus: Going Strong In Indian Healthtech Sector

Madhukar Gangadi launched MedPlus in 2006 when he realised the existing gaps in the Indian pharma industry. He found that around 30% of the fake medicines sold across the world came from India and decided to launch MedPlus in order to provide a reliable source of medicines to the Indian consumers.

Today, there are around 1400 MedPlus pharmacies throughout India, serving over 2,50,000 customers daily and employing over 10,000 people. It also runs businesses such as an optical store, MedPlusLens; MedPlus Pathlabs; RiteCure, a distributor of medical and surgical supplies to hospitals; and online pharmacy store MedPlusMart.com, launched in 2015.

Till date, MedPlus has raised $210.28 Mn with last being a debt round of $117.67 Mn.

Through MedPlusMart, customers can buy medicines, OTC products, FMCG and nutrition products, and can also gain information on medicines, store their health records, view their prescription history, and redeem rewards.

Amazon: Continuous Bets In India

As Amazon India is expected to reach $70 Bn in gross merchandise volume (GMV) and $11 Bn in net sales by 2027, the company is continuing to invest in Indian startups, beyond its ecommerce business.

Recently, Amazon India head Amit Agarwal talked about startups and said, “All the startups that are running… people should be very proud of what they’ve achieved.”

In December 2014, Amazon made its first Indian investment of $10 Mn in Bengaluru-based gift card technology and retail startup QwikCilver Solutions. Then it acquired Noida-based payment gateway firm EMVANTAGE Payments Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed amount in February 2016.

Amazon was also one of the investors in Chennai-based financial marketplace BankBazaar, which raised nearly $110 Mn. During a recent interview to Livemint, Agarwal said, “BankBazaar is the kind of investment that hopefully can converge in the future.”

In November 2017, the company announced a collaboration with global crowdfunding platform Kickstarter and China-headquartered hardware accelerator HAX to aid the acceleration process of startups in India, thereby propelling the Indian Startup Ecosystem.

In April 2018, SAIF Partners and Sequoia India-backed online lending platform Capital Float raised $22 Mn in a follow-on Series C funding round from Amazon Inc.

Recently, reports surfaced that Amazon has started talks with Future Retail Ltd to acquire a 10% stake in the company that owns the Indian hypermarket, supermarket and home segments — Big Bazaar, Easy Day, Foodhall, among others.

Also, Amazon recently led a $12 Mn funding round in online-only insurance startup Acko.

Meanwhile, the Indian ecommerce industry has been disrupted by Walmart’s acquisition of a 77% stake in Flipkart, and traders have been protesting against the deal.

The All India Organisation of Chemists and Druggists (AIOCD) is taking a strong stand against Amazon’s plans to acquire MedPlus. Reports cited Jagannath Shinde, president of the AIOCD, as saying that the 8.5 lakh chemists and pharmacists who are members of his organisation were against online sales of drugs in India.

“Yes, we know that Amazon is trying to get into online pharmacy. We are planning an agitation from August 1 to 14. If the government doesn’t listen to our demands, we will go into a work-to-rule mode opening our shops only eight hours a day,” he said.

“Amazon and Flipkart will burn capital to acquire customers. What will happen to the more than one crore of people employed by pharmacies,” he asked.

The Indian healthcare market, which is worth $100 Bn, is likely to grow at 23% CAGR to reach $280 Bn by 2020, as per a Deloitte 2016 report. With Amazon ready to acquire MedPlus, India’s healthtech industry too should be ready for the disruption.

[The development was reported by FactorDaily.]

The post Amazon Ready To Foray Into Indian Healthtech Market With MedPlus appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Mumbai-based online homeopathy treatment platform Welcomecure has raised an undisclosed amount of funding from Bollywood couple Riteish and Genelia Deshmukh. Nihilent Technologies CEO LC Singh also participated in this round of funding.

The company will use the raised funds to strengthen its infrastructure, expand the team, and promote the brand through consumer engagement initiatives.

Punit Desai, co-founder, and CEO, Welcomecure, said, “One of the key aspects of our offerings includes ensuring a seamless interaction between doctors and patients. To ensure that we maintain that, the funds raised will be focused on offering technology and service upgrades. We are looking to raise more funds of close to $5 Mn on a follow-on basis.”

Riteish & Genelia Deshmukh will also endorse the service as they become the brand ambassadors of the health-tech platform. “The couple’s belief in this form of medicine and their efforts towards expanding awareness regarding our brand and space will help extend our services to more patients in need”, he added.

Founded in January 2016, Welcomecure is a subscription-based platform that helps patients connect with doctors who specialise in over 125 health conditions through voice, video or text messaging.

The platform provides an unlimited and free supply of homoeopathy medicines along with doorstep delivery of medicines while also offering lifestyle and dietary advice and maintaining patient records over cloud servers for ease of access.

It claims to have patients in over 36 countries and conducts more than 45K consultations every day.

In past few years, celebrities have been inclined towards the Indian startup ecosystem. Most recently, in April 2018, Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty Kundra had also invested $250K in Delhi-based MamaEarth, an online baby care products startup.

Other celebrity ventures include Raw Pressery, which had raised $543 K from Jacqueline Fernandez, SoundLogic which has roped in Mahendra Singh Dhoni as Partner-Evangelist, and fashion tech startup Stylecracker in which Alia Bhatt has taken a minority stake among others.

With the rise of online healthcare, alternative medicine has also seen the rise and have been adopted well by the users. Increased awareness alternative medicine has created a burgeoning demand across India and the world. Further, the alternative market, mainly comprising of AYUSH (ayurveda, Unani, yoga, naturopathy, siddha, and homeopathy) is expected to grow to a $15 Bn market by 2020.

Other notable startups in the alternative medicines sector include Healclinic, the Silver Lining, Syncremedies, and Dr Vaidya’s, among others.

The post Welcomecure Raises Undisclosed Amount From Riteish And Genelia Deshmukh appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Two former managing directors (MDs) – V T Bharadwaj and Gautam Mago from the Sequoia Capital are joining hands to launch a new $291 Mn (INR 2000 Cr) investment company  A91 partners.

The duo will be investing in emerging companies across sectors such as consumer, healthcare, financial services, and technology.

The fund plans to start investments by early next year. It will look to cut cheques of $10-30 Mn, coming in typically at the Series-B stage startups.

The duo has earlier worked together at the McKinsey before and has spent a decade together at the Sequoia Capital.

They have been part of the investments in companies like Prataap Snacks, Hector Beverages, Star Health Insurance, Oyo Rooms, Indigo Paints, and Ola Cabs among others.

V T Bharadwaj, on the launch, said, “Gautam and I believe this is the right time for us to be embarking on an entrepreneurial journey in the investment business.”

He further said that they both want to be active, meaningful, long-term partners in the best emerging small and medium-sized private companies in India.

The company will be among a new set of investment funds started by leading executives who have gone independent after long stints at bigger investment companies.

Similar to this was when four Sequoia executives had moved out and had formed an independent fund in 2011. The four MDs of the India unit including Sumir Chadha,  K P Balraj, Sandeep Singhal, and S K Jain had come together to revive WestBridge Capital as a primarily public markets fund.

A few similar exits include:

• Rishi Navani, co-founder and MD at Matrix Partners had quit to launch Epiq Capital.
• Kanwaljit Singh, Helion Ventures Partner’s founding partner had formed Fireside Ventures.
• Mukul Singhal and Rohit Jain, fund managers from SAIF Partners launched Pravega Ventures in 2016.

Earlier, in 2016, three senior executives from Helion Venture Partners – Ritesh Banglani, Alok Goyal, and Rahul Chowdhri had come together to start Stellaris Venture Partners.

Inc42 DataLabs, in its H1 2018 funding report observed that fewer startups are being able to crack seed-stage funding deals. However, amid this dry run of funds, mature startups or the startups at growth stage have been able to take in big-ticket size fundings.

“The number of deals in H1 2018 increased by 15% compared to H2 2017. However, the funding amount fell by 40% compared to H2 2017 and by 18% compared to H1 2017,” mentions the Inc42 tech startup funding report H1 2018.

[The development was reported by TOI.]

The post Former Sequoia Capital MDs To Launch A $291 Mn Fund To Invest In Series B Startups appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Startup India has launched Startup Academia Alliance Programme for academic scholars and startups, aimed at bridging scientific research and its industrial applications gap, and increase the efficacy of technologies for wide impact.

“The Startup Academia Alliance aims to reduce the gap between scientific research and its industrial applications in order to increase the efficacy of these technologies and to widen their impact,” the ministry of commerce and industry said in a statement.

The Startup Academia Alliance programme by Startup India aims to fulfill the government’s mission to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship in the country. It focuses on simplification, handling, funding support, incentives, industry-academia partnership, and incubation for startups.

The first phase of the programme was hosted at India Startup Hub. Over 133 applications were received from startups, of which 43 were selected on the basis of their operational area and technological relevance.

The programme is being organised in partnership with The Regional Centre for Biotechnology, The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), The Council on Energy, Environment and Water, and The TERI School of Advanced Studies.

Renowned scholars from these institutes in fields such as renewable energy, biotechnology, healthcare and life sciences were taken on board to provide mentorship and guidance to startups.

“The mentorship sessions have commenced and it is expected that startups will greatly benefit from the expertise and insights brought forth by experienced research scholars working in pertinent fields,” the ministry added.

About Startup India And Its Programmes

Prime Minister Narendra Modi first announce Startup India during his August 15 2015 address from the Red Fort.

It also runs a Startup India Learning Programme, which is a free online entrepreneurship programme that aims to help entrepreneurs get ideas and ventures to the next level through structured learning.

Other programmes that run under Startup India include India Portugal Startup Hub, Incubation for persons with disabilities, Health Sector Incubation Program by Huddle & Healthstart among others.

Other accelerator programmes started by Startup India in the past include Upaya Social Ventures -2018 AGRIBUSINESS ACCELERATOR, Accelerated Incubation Programme among others.

In 2017, the minister of state for commerce and industry had launched the Startup India Virtual Hub which hosts startups, investors, funds, mentors etc.

Recently, the Madhya Pradesh Startup India Yatra was organised which drew over 5K participants with 427 startups pitching their ideas. The selected startups were put through an accelerator programme and ultimately 71 startups had received 110 incubation offers from seven incubators.

Startup Academia Alliance further strives to create lasting connections between the stakeholders of the startup ecosystem and implement the third pillar on which the Startup India Action Plan is based — Industry Academia Partnerships and Incubation, the ministry said.

The post Startup Academia Alliance Programme Launched To Promote Entrepreneurship appeared first on Inc42 Media.

New Delhi-based healthcare services provider 3HCare has raised $1 Mn in the second round of funding from a group of technology experts.

The startup plans to use the funding to expand its team, infrastructure and scale up the platform by strengthening IT.

They will further use funds to bolster and upgrade our technology, especially the incorporation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to provide an enhanced value-added customer experience and expand it to pan India.

Founded in 2016 by Ruchi Gupta, 3HCare offers online booking of diagnostic test, offline corporate annual and pre-employment tests, and preventive healthcare test packages, domestic and international surgeries.

Ruchi Gupta, Founder and CEO, 3HCare said, “The idea has always been to improve hyper-local neighbourhood concept, powered in the front end by technology. We are pleased to have closed our second round of funding and this will hold us in good stead while we spread out geographically. Ease of access, the saving of time, transparency, comparative cost and credibility are few traits due to which even the corporate sector have preferred our services.”

The company last raised angel funding of $100K from undisclosed investors to plan their expansion in diagnostics, surgery and boosting medical tourism.

Currently, the portal allows users to compare and book an online treatment for cancer, heart, spine, orthopedics, neurology, fertility, gynaecology, organ transplant, cosmetic surgery, and others.

The company is now planning to cover semi-urban and rural areas and also encash on the trending aspect of Artificial intelligence and translate the gathered information into tangible results.

It expects that the development of user-interface will produce highly reliable, repeatable and accurate results. 3HCare has collaborations with many leading hospitals (Both NABL and JCI accredited) across the country.

To offer accessibility to diagnostic centres easily, 3HCare has partnered with over 400 diagnostic centres and over 50 hospitals in more than 1500 locations across India.

With an aim for the patients to manage their finances efficiently, the company also offers another vertical Plan My Surgery, a service that helps patient plan surgical treatment online.

Healthcare Industry In India

In the Indian healthtech space, there are players such as MedPlus, 1mg, NetMeds, Punit Soni’s Suki, Visit, Innovaccer, Zoctr, Lybrate, and Tricog, among others.

Recently, Bengaluru-based healthtech startup HealthPlix raised $3 Mn in a Series A round from IDG Ventures and Kalaari Capital.

The increasing market of healthtech in India can also be seen with online insurance aggregator PolicyBazaar launching its new healthcare business DocPrime. It plans to convert consumers spending out of their pockets on healthcare into getting insurance.

Here are a few important statistics of the healthcare industry:

• The market for diagnostics services has been growing in India over the past couple of years at a rate of 15%-20% and stood at nearly $5.82 Bn (INR 40,000 Cr) as of 2016
• Healthcare is one of the biggest revenue and employment generating sectors in India and was expected to touch $ 160 Bn by 2017
• A Google-BCG report suggested that digital spending by consumers is expected to grow nearly 2.5 times to $100 Bn by 2020
• Overall, the global healthtech market is estimated to reach $104.5 Bn by 2020, according to a new report by Grand View Research
• The Indian healthcare market is expected to reach $280 Bn by 2020, from the current $100 Bn, according to an IBEF

The post Healthcare Startup 3HCare Raises $1 Mn For Expansion appeared first on Inc42 Media.

DocPrime, the latest healthcare venture by Policybazaar and Paisabazaar parent EtechAces Marketing and Consulting (‘Policybazaar Group’), has received an initial internal funding of $50 Mn from the parent company.

In June 2018, the Policybazaar Group marked its entry into the healthcare business with DocPrime, while announcing a delay in its IPO plans as well. This was also a time when the Policybazaar Group raised more than $200 Mn funding led by SoftBank Vision Fund and InfoEdge.

“We intend to use the capital in providing seamless user experience and bringing innovation in the healthcare space. Our focus is to make the services more customer-friendly driven by transparency, trust and sustainability. We are bringing innovation through the use of various technology tools like AI, data science and deep analytics,” said Ashish Gupta, CEO, docprime.com.

According to Yashish Dahiya, CEO and co-founder, the Policybazaar Group of Companies, the healthcare sector has a lot of untapped potential and, currently, the services are not affordable and accessible for all. With rising out-of-pocket expenses, there’s a need to provide quality healthcare at competitive prices that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere.

DocPrime is a monthly subscription service that will provide complete coverage of outpatient department (OPD) expenses incurred by users, covering all doctor calls, medical checks, and tests, barring surgeries and pharmacy-related expenses.

Its core offerings include free consultation services through chat and phone with in-house doctors and offer discounted doctor and lab appointment bookings to encourage consumers to seek expert medical advice and get the right treatment healthcare in a timely manner. The platform also aims to bring in a unique OPD subscription-based product, which will cover unlimited consultations and diagnostic tests.

As claimed by the company, DocPrime has tied-up with 14,000 doctors and 5,000 diagnostic labs and aims to expand its network to 1,50,000 doctors and 20,000 labs across 100+ cities. “Currently, appointments can be booked with doctors and labs based in Delhi-NCR but from next month onwards, the facility will be made available across all major cities including Mumbai, Bengaluru Hyderabad and Chennai,” said Gupta.

Earlier, in August 2018, Inc42 also reported that PolicyBazaar plans to work with China’s Ping An Insurance Group, which owns and operates Ping An Good Doctor — the world’s largest healthcare portal — to strengthen DocPrime. Ping An Good Doctor is backed by Softbank.

The Policybazaar Group is also planning to sell medicines online, thus challenging existing players like 1mg Technologies, NetMeds etc.

Practo, Healthkart, Zoctr, Tricog, Care24, Zozz have emerged in recent times to tap into various niches of the online healthcare services.

Overall, the Indian healthcare market stands at $100 Bn as per IBEF. It is expected to touch $280 Bn by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 22.9%. According to industry estimates, standalone outpatient care in terms of size would be six times that of the current health insurance market by that year. Drugs, diagnostics, consultations and tests primarily constitute out-of-pocket-expenses.

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1mg Technologies, an epharma company, recently released its financials for FY 2017-18. According to the documents, sourced from Tofler, the company reported its revenues for the period ending March 31, 2018, as INR 39.8 Cr ($5.4 Mn), a 223% jump from the last financial year.

1mg was launched in April 2015 after Healthkart separated its generic drug search business, HealthkartPlus, and rebranded it as 1mg, to be operated under 1mg Technologies Pvt Ltd. The company operates under three business vertical heads: Pharmaceuticals (www.1mg.com), Labs (www.1mglabs.com), Doctors (www.1mgdoctors.com).

Of the total revenue, the epharmacy contributed INR 23.2 Cr ($3.1 Mn) while the diagnostics share was INR 8.8 Cr ($1.1 Mn) in FY18, an increase of 268% and 214% respectively from FY17. The company further reported a net loss of INR 88 Cr ($11.9 Mn) during the fiscal. This is about a 50% increase from the last financial year.

However, the increase in absolute expenses in the last fiscal was much more than the increase in revenues. The company’s total expenses for the fiscal were reported as INR 128 Cr ($17.4 Mn). The increase in expenses was significantly contributed by advertising expenses, which doubled from INR 22 Cr ($2.9 Mn) in the previous fiscal to INR 48 Cr ($6.5 Mn) this financial year.

The increased expenses also had an impact on the company’s growth rate for FY18. As Inc42 reported earlier as part of a June 2018 analysis in its What The Financials series, 1mg reported a growth rate of 263% on the basis of its total income, which has now dropped to 223% in FY18.

1mg’s major competitors are other epharma players such as Healthkart, PharmEasy, and NetMeds, among others. As noted by Inc42 in the FY17 analysis, 1mg has been growing at a fast pace, but with a significantly higher cost as compared to its peers. Startups like Netmeds are gaining an edge here with inhouse warehousing and freight facilities, thereby helping push down the logistics expenses.

The Indian healthcare market is further expected to reach $372 Bn by 2022, from according to a September 2018 IBEF report. Recently, the government also released final guidelines for epharma companies, in line with the draft Personal Data Protection Bill and DISHA Guidelines

An email sent to 1mg did not elicit any response till the time of publication.

The post 1mg Records 223% Revenue Growth In FY18, But At A High Cost appeared first on Inc42 Media.

A study by Accenture has predicted that growth in the AI healthcare space is expected to touch $6.6 Bn by 2021 with a CAGR of 40%. As on today, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are well and truly poised to make the work of healthcare providers more logical & streamlined than repetitive. The technology is helping shape personalized healthcare services while significantly reducing the time to look for information that is critical to decision making and facilitating better care for patients.

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare has immense potential to improve costs, the quality of services, and access to them. Here’s how –

Overview of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

According to CIO, AI-powered healthcare are driving meaningful changes across the entire patient journey. Applications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare primarily revolves around-

1. Making healthcare providers efficient and productive
2. Providing a far more streamlined and robust experience to in-patients and out-patients
3. Making back-end processes effective and organized

But, clinical applications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare are rare – a trend we expect to change soon. Here are a few potential and current implementations of AI and Machine Learning in Healthcare.

Virtual Assistants for Patients and Healthcare Workers

The key driver for adopting virtual nursing assistants has been the shortage of medical labour that often leads to pressure on the available healthcare workers. A virtual assistant powered by AI can enhance the communication between patient as well as the care provider while leading to better consumer experience and reduced physician burnout. With a voice recognition technology, voice biometrics, EHR integrations, and a speaker customized for healthcare, Nuance Communication had unveiled an artificial virtual assistant in September 2017.

When physicians appear to be taking time with their patients, the latter end up feeling cared for and carry a sense of contentment. A virtual assistant can carry out the initial dialogue between the patient and healthcare provider, setting the tone for more in-depth conversations later. By doing so, a virtual assistant for healthcare can take some responsibilities off the shoulders of physicians, allowing them to focus on delivering better service and care.

AI-Powered Chatbots

Chatbots powered by AI can make a world of difference to healthcare. A report by Juniper Research states that chatbots will be responsible for saving $8 Bn per annum of costs by 2022 for Retail, ecommerce, Banking, and Healthcare. As inquiry resolution times get reduced, and the initial communication gets automated, the healthcare sector can expect massive cost savings through the use of chatbots.

AI-powered bots can help physicians in healthcare diagnosis through a series of questions where users select their answers from a predefined set of choices and are then recommended a course of action accordingly. The same research study also predicts that the success of chatbot interactions where no human interventions take place will go up to 75% in 2022 from 12% in 2017.

Knowledge management systems will become a critical part of chatbots for AI where the common questions and answers would be accumulated throughout the life of a solution, aiding in the learning process of the chatbot. You can read more about how conversational AI will impact healthcare in this article.

Robots for Explaining Lab Results

In 2017, Scanadu developed doc.ai. The application takes away one task from doctors and assigns it to the AI – the job of interpreting lab results. The company’s first software solution makes sense out of blood tests. The application was planned to interpret genetic tests, and then other tests would be added to the list.

The platform works with natural language processing to converse with the patients via a mobile app and explains their lab results to them in a way they can understand. The technology is powered by AI and relieves doctors from their not-so-favorite part of the healthcare process, allowing them to focus on the more critical aspects. Walter DeBrouwer, the founder of Scanadu, believes that these applications of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare are only expanding the decision tools in the domain, enabling physicians to avail necessary help in order to make critical decisions.

Robot-Assisted Surgery

Microsurgical procedures in the healthcare space require precision and accuracy. Robots powered with AI are assisting physicians to help reduce variations that could affect patient health and recovery in the longer term. Robot-aided procedures can compensate for the differences in the skills of physicians in cases of new or difficult surgeries, which often lead to implications for the health of the patient, or costs of the procedure.

Robots are known to have skills humans don’t. With robot-assisted surgeries, doctors can eliminate any risks of imprecision or anomalies in the procedure. As machine learning and data analytics reach new heights for healthcare, robots will be able to uncover critical insights and best practices for any surgery.

Inefficiencies and poor outcomes will be substantially reduced, ultimately leading to better patient care and service delivery. With robots conducting or assisting doctors in surgeries, training costs can be saved, and routine tasks can be automated with precision.

Automated Image Diagnosis with AI/ML

Medical image diagnosis is another AI use case in healthcare. One of the most significant issues that medical practitioners face is sifting through the volume of information available to them, thanks to EMRs and EHRs. This data also includes imaging data apart from procedure reports, pathology reports, downloaded data, etc. In the future, patients will send even more data through their remote portals, including images of the wound site to check if there is a need for an in-person checkup after a healing period.

These images can now be potentially scanned and assessed by an AI-powered system. X-rays are only one piece of the puzzle when it comes to medical imaging. We also have MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasounds. IBM’s celebrated implementation of AI, Watson, already has applications of AI in healthcare. IBM’s AI-powered radiology tool, IBM Watson Imaging Clinical Review sets the ground for more innovation to happen in the image diagnosis aspect of healthcare.

Personal Health Companions Powered by AI

People today need medical assistance in the comfort of their homes, for as long as they can. For the first preliminary overview of any symptom, personal health companions have become popular amongst people all around the world. Babylon Health is a UK-based start-up that has developed a chatbot for the early prevention and diagnosis of diseases. When the application receives a symptom explanation from a user, it compares the same to its database and recommends an appropriate course of action based on the history of the patient, his circumstances, and the symptoms he reports.

Similarly, Berlin-based Ada is a similar companion that uses AI and ML to track the patient’s health and provides insights and understanding to the patient for any changes in their health.

Oncology – Detecting skin cancer with AI

Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare also talks about deep learning. Researchers are using deep learning to train machines to identify cancerous tissues with an accuracy comparable to a trained physicist. Deep learning holds unique value in detecting cancer as it can help achieve higher diagnostic accuracy in comparison to domain experts.

One of the current applications of deep learning in healthcare is the detection of cancer from gene expression data, something researchers from Oregon State University were able to do with deep learning. This use case opens us to the long-ranging and critical impact of deep learning on the oncology industry today and in future.

AI in Pathology

Pathology concerns with the diagnosis of diseases based on the analysis of bodily fluids such as blood and urine. Machine learning in healthcare can help enhance the efforts in pathology often traditionally left to pathologists as they often have to evaluate multiple images in order to reach a diagnosis after finding any trace of abnormalities. With help from machine learning and deep learning, pathologists’ efforts can be streamlined, and the accuracy in decision making can be improved.

While these networks and AI-powered solutions can assist pathologists, we need to clarify that artificial intelligence is not replacing physicians in this regard any sooner. Deep learning networks can only become so efficient when they get experience and learning over a period, just as physicians do.

AI in Healthcare, specifically in pathology, can help replace the need for physical samples of tissues by improving upon the available radiology tools – making them more accurate and detailed.

Rare Diseases Detection with AI

Rare diseases pose challenges for AI. While their detection is one of them, we also need to ensure our healthcare systems are not inclined towards detecting rare diseases when the diagnosis could be something commonplace. Through a series of neural networks, AI is helping healthcare providers achieve this balance. Facial recognition software is combined with machine learning to detect patterns in facial expressions that point us towards the possibility of a rare disease.

Face2gene is a genetic search and reference application for physicians. In this solution, AI scans through the image data of a patient’s face and spots signs of genetic disorders such as Down’s Syndrome.

Another similar solution is Moon developed by Diploid which enables early diagnosis of rare diseases through the software, allowing doctors to begin early treatment. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare carries special significance in detecting rare diseases earlier than they usually could be.

Cybersecurity Applications of AI in Healthcare

Errors and frauds mar the landscape of healthcare. Therefore, one of the more critical applications of AI in healthcare is ensuring the security of data and solutions. Fraud and breach detection traditionally relied on running rules and reviewing systems manually. However, as AI has become poised to help detect breaches, it is estimated that $17 billion can be saved annually by improving the speed of fraud detection.

Cybersecurity has become a significant concern for healthcare organizations, threatening to cost them $380 per patient record. Using Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare for monitoring and detecting security anomalies can create trust and loyalty as the foundation for more digital disruption in the healthcare space.

Medication Management with AI and ML

The AiCure app developed by The National Institutes of Health helps monitor medication by a patient. With a motto of “Intelligent Observation. Better Care.”, the application enables autonomous confirmation that a patient is regularly consuming the prescribed medication. A smartphone’s webcam is integrated with AI to manage medicines for the patient.

Frequent users of the system could be patients with severe medical conditions, those who voluntarily miss their medication, and participants of clinical trials. There are benefits of medication management in dealing with patients who have mental conditions that stop them from regularly taking necessary medicines prescribed by their physician.

Health Monitoring with AI and Wearables

Health monitoring is already a widespread application of AI in Healthcare. Wearable health trackers such as those offered by Apple, Fitbit, and Garmin monitor activity and heart rates. These wearables are then in a position to send all of the data forward to an AI system, bringing in more insights and information about the ideal activity requirement of a person.

These systems can detect workout patterns and send alerts when someone misses out their workout routine. The needs and habits of a patient can be recorded and made available to them when need be, improving the overall healthcare experience. For instance, if a patient needs to avoid heavy cardiac workout, they can be notified of the same when high levels of activity are detected.

The role of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare is not limited to these. As trends emerge and physicians look for newer ways to improve healthcare services and experiences for patients, we will have novel concepts turning into reality. While the healthcare space is buzzing with innovation, it will be a while before these systems can be made affordable, scalable, and available to all healthcare institutions.

In the complex world of healthcare, Artificial Intelligence can support providers with faster service, early diagnosis, and data analysis to identify genetic information to predispose someone to a particular disease. Saving seconds could mean saving lives in the healthcare space & that is the reason why AI and ML hold such significance for every patient.

AI working hand-in-hand with doctors, physicians and healthcare providers is likely to continue to be the current course for a while, and eventually, it will get to a point where it will be a crawl-walk-run endeavour with less complex tasks being addressed by bots. At Maruti Techlabs, we work extensively with leading hospitals and healthcare providers by assisting them in deploying virtual assistants that address appointment booking, medical diagnosis, data entry, in-patient and out-patient query addressal and automate customer support through the use of intelligent chatbots and Robotic Process Automation.

Get in touch with us today to learn more about how we are assisting hospitals in scaling their operations and customer support.

The post Everything You Need To Know About AI In Healthcare appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While 2017 was a year of correction for Indian startups showing a decline in the number of startups established in 2017 compared to that of 2016, 2018 rehashed the growth tune both in terms of the number of startups founded as well as the total funding to the startups. However, the funding, this year, remained limited to less number of startups compared to the previous year.

As we look back to 2018, we have created the analysis on the early stage space, with respect to the trends seen on the startup side, and investor side. The data analysis is based on the LetsVenture platform data and does not represent the overall ecosystem data. However with over 5000 startups that registered on LetsVenture in 2018, and the investor base growing by 1000, we believe it is a fair representation of the overall behaviour of trends seen in the Indian ecosystem.

The summary of what was achieved in 2018.

2018 Early Stage Startup Trends

Sector split(% of companies):

1. SaaS, Media, Fintech, Healthcare, Consumer Goods were the most heavily funded sectors comprising more than 50% of the funded companies. This is inline with the funded sectors in the market which has seen similar levels of funding in these sectors.
2. Increased Digital Adoption: Was witnessed in payments, content & video by the Indian masses, matured products solving for Indian SMEs and enterprises and the need felt by enterprises to adopt digital tech to stay ahead of the curve.
3. Hardware / IoT Starting To See Traction: We saw more than usual deals happening in the Hardware/IoT segment which traditionally has not been one of the hot favorites among the venture investors. This indicates the maturity on the investor side and the availability of patient capital required to drive innovation.
4. New Themes Emerging: Hedge funds using AI, Intelligent apparel, Airport logistics optimisation, disruptive lending models for healthcare & education, voice-based assistants for the masses, standardised healthcare experience for patients, travel social networks, nanotech-based pollution filters were some of the new themes that emerged in 2018.
5. There has been a drop in the number of early stage companies operating in the vertical ecommerce space. Given the number of large players in the sector, there is room left only for a few disruptive ideas and not everyone.
6. Startups have started to emerge exploiting the untapped potential for consumer brands especially in food & beverages, hygiene, and healthcare.

B2B/B2C split:

B2B has been on a rise for the last three years and this year it has become the dominating segment in the early stage market. There has been an increase from 45% last year to 56% in 2017.

Location wise split:

1. Delhi and Bengaluru (29% each) stayed at par in terms of early-stage funding on the platform. We see a similar trend in the market, except Delhi was slightly lesser in the market.
2. Non-metro cities which contributed 10% of the deals saw a good increase in comparison to the last year. We saw a couple of most innovative models coming out from non-metros.

2018 Early Stage Investor Trends

There has been a 55% increase in investor registration requests in 2018, but the rejection rate has almost doubled from 23% in 2017 to 45% this year. Though awareness of the asset class is increasing, we also see investors struggling to manage diversification of the portfolio.

We received a total of 430+ commits this year from investors. The heatmap of these commits is depicted below:

Investor Registrations

1. 2018 witnessed more investors registering to the platform as compared to 2017. Awareness in the Indian HNIs through Media and other channels played a key role in attracting more investors to startups as an asset class.
2. With a more stringent curation process to onboard investors, the number of rejects on investor registration saw a significant increase.

Commitments on LetsVenture from Angels

1. The contribution of India-based investors in deals continued to have a major share. This is followed by investors in the US, and Singapore.
2. Every round sees 30% commitments from global investors.
3. Every round sees 18% commitments from investors in Tier 2 cities.
4. Average cheque size on LV was seen as INR 10 lakhs.
5. About 4-5% of the investors committed within the first quarter of joining the platform.
6. We saw an increase in engagement from micro-funds and their willingness to syndicate with angels. In 2018, more than 50% of the early stage in India was done by Institutional investors (VCs, Microfunds)

Family Offices Becomes an Active Participant into Startups as an Asset Class

2018 marked the first year of LV Titans — our private platform designed specifically for Family Offices to access the Startup & Venture Capital asset class. We met with and onboarded 130 Business Families across sectors, most of whom have established large traditional businesses.

As the first wave of successful startups emerged in the last three years, Family Offices have taken notice of the new-age economy but lacked a trusted partner who can help them navigate it efficiently. LV Titans came as a welcome initiative, and our first year helped us understand the Family Office needs, and create personalised offerings.

Apart from early stage startup investments on the LetsVenture platform, we brought to our Family Offices exclusive co-investment allocations in growth stage rounds (Series B & C) which were led by marquee VCs. What was distinct was that apart from being patient capital, the Family Offices offered an unparalleled understanding of sectors where they have built businesses. This offers entrepreneurs support on business, the customer connects as well as support to navigate the govt and regulatory challenges. Below is a summary of the various industries in which our Family Offices have expertise / large operating businesses in:

Family Office Investment Trends

While the direct startup investment is beginning to see acceptance among Family Offices, many of them look Limited Partner investment into VC Funds as their initial step in the asset class. As Limited Partners, they are able to understand this asset class while parallelly learning the differences from typical public markets and private equity investments.

LetsVenture has enabled Family Offices to access exclusive allocations in premier VC Funds in India and Silicon Valley. LV allocations are with coupled with co-investment rights provide a continuous engagement with the Family Offices.

1. Num of Family Offices Onboarded o LV: 130
2. Num of Family Offices who have invested into startups via LV: 19
3. Num of Family Offices who have invested into VC Funds via LV: 12
4. 80% of the capital invested in the VC Funds came from Family Offices who had never invested in VC Funds before the LV Titans engagement.

Trends in 2019 in the Indian Ecosystem

Based on the early stage funding patterns from 2018, we believe these would be some key trends to watch out for in 2019.

Sector Trends

1. Healthcare will continue to be a growing sector, with a shift towards the deep vertical/specialised focus.
2. In Fintech, while lending seems passe, 2019 will see the emergence of insurance offerings and Wealth Management solutions targeted towards India. Wealth management will see both offline and online players compete for the same customer segment.
3. There will be an emergence of new asset models. 2019 will see Land as an asset model (cars and real-estate will continue to be hot, as the market will move towards consolidation in these spaces)
4. Drones will see revived a rejuvenation of interest with the new Government regulations coming finally in place.
5. We will continue to see the market adapt health-related products targeted with healthy eating options, fitness for mind and body. The market consolidation will not yet happen in 2019.
6. Consumer brands will continue to see increased capital inflow in Product plays. It remains to be seen if Brand only plays can find any footing in India
7. Cloud will continue getting increased adoption by Enterprises and SMEs – much more room for SaaS startups to gain traction in India. Models where product building happens in India and target global markets will remain a hot favorite among investors

Other Market Trends

1. Content consumption will move towards video and audio content, with an emphasis on 3-5m reading time for written content.
2. New models of distribution targeted at tier2 & tier 3 cities will emerge in 2019.
3. Mobile first models to stay relevant in this context.
4. AI/ML will become must-have standards in implementation, and will no longer be differentiators in product offerings.
5. Voice as a layer will become a game changer
6. Micro-funds and institutional investors participating in the early stage will continue to rise. In 2018, this percentage crossed 50% of the overall funding. We believe this will continue to see a 10-15% increase in 2019.
7. Venture Debt is seeing the surge, and we believe in 2019, this will become more prevalent as an alternate model for funding.
8. Family Offices as an alternate channel for liquidity now directly investing into growth stage startups is here to stay. We think the allocation towards direct co-investment will see an increase in their allocation percentage set aside for this asset class.

The post Startup And Investor Analysis – Reflections 2018 And Trends in 2019 appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Gurugram-based healthtech startup Abita Healthcare has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding led by Michigan-based early stage fund and global incubator Sky7Ventures, the company told Inc42.

Other investors who participated in the round include Vignesh Ramanujam, investor and board member at Ritex, Younify and Chaicup; Balasubramanian Sankaranarayanan, EVP head, Thryve Digital Health; Navy Ramavat, managing director, Indira securities; and Swapnil Mehta.

Founded by two doctors, Jatin Kakrani and Avi Ramavat along with an MBA graduate Hitesh Kakrani, Abita Healthcare offers integrated technology operations to provide automated and optimised management of practice for its partner medical practitioners.

In November 2017, the trio began their healthtech startup with two clinics in Tier 2 city, Indore, Madhya Pradesh. The team then reached the beta testing stage in April 2018, with six paid clinics and started full-scale operations.

The company now works with more than 40 clinics across Indore, Pune and Ahmedabad. Explaining the reason for starting up in Tier 2 cities rather than metro cities, Hitesh explained that technology innovation is much more needed in the smaller cities with lack of technology touch for doctor’s day-to-day operations.

“It digitises entire speciality clinics workflow, optimises unit operations and automates all the peripheral processes including pre and post-care, patient education, procedure-wise time allocation, and pre-operative checklist compliance,” Hitesh told Inc42.

Investors Support The Niche Move In Healthcare

With the influx of fresh funds, Abita Healthcare plans to use the proceeds to expand to more cities and strengthen its foothold with more products and even better collaborations.

Vineet Katial, managing director of Sky7ventures and founding member, Detroit TIE angels said “India’s healthcare sector is one of the fastest growing segments within India. However, it is highly fragmented and therefore very inefficient.  We had been looking for companies with out of the box thinking to solve this problem and Abita’s innovative approach backed with a stellar team and strong work ethics really impressed us.”

Hitesh emphasised that their investors also bring in a lot of technology businesses experience, specially healthtech experience behind them which they plan to leverage to develop really robust operations as it scales up. For example, one of the investors Balasubramanian Sankaranarayanan has led life sciences and healthcare at Genpact and Cognizant which gives company sector confidence.

The company claims that its tech ecosystem helps medical practitioners save 20-30% of the operational cost, get higher revenues and more productive core practice hours.

Hitesh explained that the company also has plans to expand its niche offerings to services where the inventory demand is heavy and constant like dermatology, dental care etc.

The company has aligned with more than 100 new customers, which it will start deploying products this month. The company earns its revenue through subscription charges and commissions.

Doc32: Managing Operations For Dentists

With its first product, Doc32, the company provides data analytics on clinic’s performance (insight driven, revenue and margins), item-specific supplies inventory required for a month and doctor’s performance matrix like treatment conversions.

It also provides system generated specific speciality patient health and hygiene scores, which further opens up into specific issue-based scores.

Hitesh explained that unlike listing platforms and workflow management platforms Doc32’s USP is building highly customised products as it works alongside doctors, based on their requirements and needs as it takes into consideration aspects ranging from frequency of consumer engagement/ purchase pattern, time spent in clinic, use of diagnostic equipment, COGS and consultation patterns.

The company has also tied up with local suppliers and global technology providers to collaborate for its technology backend. The company currently has offices in Indore, Gurugram as well as Michigan to leverage strong technology competencies.

Some of the interesting capabilities of Doc32 include patient experience and exhaustive data. Hitesh explained that as soon as a patient is checked-in, a complete digital prescription screen opens up with a synced flow in tabs of – Complain, History, Diagnosis, Counselling, Treatment, Prescription and Invoicing.

“It standardises the patient experience and captures exhaustive data for each patient which helps in accurate diagnosis, right record keeping and complete data for future analysis,” he said.

However, the company also recognises the trust issues that tag along with the record of data and believes that it is not easy to win the trust of partner doctors, their concerns of patient data misuse or becoming dependent on listing/ discovery platforms.

“The best fit approach is to partner with a genuine practitioner and enable him to deliver better, every good doctor ultimately wants to do the best for his patients. The best approach is to have a simple target of enabling him/ her then to try any other measures of outcome control,” Hitesh said.

To further increase trust quotient and create a wholesome integrated tech ecosystem for a doctor, the company also wants to build a robust base system and keep collaborating with the right solutions as well.

At present, the company has tied up with Epinlabs – (Gift card/ code and subscription voucher generation), Vista Money (payment solutions), Sinlkd (secure video conferencing) and variety of continuing medical education content builders, which are all integrated within its platform.

Through its end-to-end integration on a subscription-based model, the company is able to make $171.65 – $214.57 (INR 12,000- INR 15,000) from each clinic annually. It further aims to increase it to nearly $286 (INR 20,000) as it looks to add more value-added services in the next two months.

Healthcare: A Widening Opportunity

The Indian healthcare market, which is worth $100 Bn, is likely to grow at 23% CAGR to reach $280 Bn by 2020.

With rising middle-class, state-of-the-art healthcare facilities, expert physicians, and increased dependency on technology to facilitate healthcare at the prevention stage the industry is expected to attain double-digit growth.

However, amid products enabling listing for doctors like Practo etc, medical insurance startups like PolicyBazaar’s DocPrime and startups like Visit, Zoctr, Lybrate etc offering guidance services to patients, doctors still lack technology upgradation and support.

According to the Medical Council of India, the country 10.41 Lakh registered doctors as on September 30, 2017. This makes 10.41 Lakh doctors catering to 1.35 Bn population of India without any technology support.

Also, the market for diagnostics services has been growing in India over the past couple of years at a rate of 15%-20% and stood at nearly $5.82 Bn (INR 40,000 Cr) as of 2016.

As Abita Healthcare identifies more niche focus areas to target more than 500 clinics in the next six months, the company’s focus remains to build the business ground-up and create a frugal robust chassis before scaling up further.

The post Exclusive: Healthtech Startup Abita Gets Seed Funding From Global Incubator Sky7Ventures, Others appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While attending the recently held BioAsia 2019 in Hyderabad, I felt gung-ho about the immense learning and sharing opportunities in a sector that is seeing both headwinds and tailwinds. Listening to and conversing with the industry leaders, investors and startups across the healthcare & pharma spectrum has not only brought fresh perspectives but also lent more credence to the several closely-held beliefs and opinions about the state of the healthcare sector in India.

Government & Academic Research Leading The Way

Firstly, there is a general sense of a strong push back by the industry about the lack of a stable Indian government policy especially with price controls. This has been a major cause of negative disruption to growth and has caused nearly 20,000 crores in top- and bottom-line losses in the past year. There is a clear consensus across the Indian pharma leadership that affordable healthcare cannot be achieved solely with price controls.

In particular, the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) has caused significant heartburn to the industry. For the uninitiated, APIs and intermediates are key raw materials to manufacture pharmaceutical formulations such as tablets, capsules, syrups, etc. The cost of API imports from China have ballooned by 3x-4x recently and pharma businesses are revisiting new investment decisions due to dilution of business viability of newly-approved projects.

Measures are being taken to incentivize indigenous production and reduce import dependency; it’ll also help reduce the enormous skew in the Indo-China trade deficit. For a $40 billion pharma industry in India, these external shocks have added fillip to promote business & technology innovation across the ecosystem. The industry is ripe for disruption and it must come from all quarters of the ecosystem.

There are favourable tailwinds such as the government efforts in creating Ayushmaan Bharat Yojana. In India, where ~65% of its population pays for healthcare themselves, India’s ranking on the Healthcare Quality Index (HQI) is abysmally low among 195 nations. Unlike the rapid improvements seen in the Ease of Doing Business Ranking during the past few years, the HQI for India has only moved at a snail’s pace from 153 in 1990 to 145 in 2018. Ayushmaan 1.0 is one of the first pillars to create a strong ecosystem towards modern healthcare.

Never can there be a better time to define a potent national innovation policy that provides better direction to the innovation efforts while providing a conducive business environment and stable trade policies. For quality research outcomes to emerge, the enabling environment needs to allow for uninterrupted creativity and scientific thought. In addition, the several federal and state research agencies can find synergies and unify innovation efforts as against working in disjointed silos chasing similar research & innovation goals.

University research is way ahead in US and China where undergraduate, impressionable students are exposed to exciting world of possibilities in the health and life sciences sector early on. It is important that India continues to underline academic research, incentivizes researchers in the biologics segment and enables research through grants. Institutes such as Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council (BIRAC), under the aegis of Department of Biotechnology (DBT), have been doing excellent work in promoting research in deep sciences.

In addition to government funding, private foundations must step up and encourage research. Taking cue from the relatively successful industry-academia partnerships in the United States of America & European Union, Indian academic institutes should find ways to participate with industry to solve real-life problems.

The Role Of Industry, Venture Capital & Startups

Pharma and healthcare organizations need to constantly revisit their company culture and its agility to respond to policy changes. Enabling culture to embrace such change is technology and innovation. Industry, while associating themselves with academia, needs to invest into basic research and work alongside enterprising startups in order to yield strategic dividends.

In the short and medium term, there’s still potential to exploit from generics and biosimilars. There are deflationary price pressures on generics (~10% YoY) and, as a result, industry leaders predict leading companies to be vacating this segment soon. Indian manufacturers, as incumbents with significant cost advantages, will stand to gain.

The venture capital and private equity industry must demonstrate more audacity by investing in cutting edge research. When compared to exit horizons in other industries, the health and life sciences sector has a longer gestation period but has higher upsides. Once few successful exits are seen, it’ll open the floodgates to institutional capital.

Industry and its corporate venture capital (CVC) units must also be being open and willing to engage with the startup ecosystem in addition to organic growth. Not just access to high risk capital, health & life sciences startups need business support and mentoring that will help them achieve the desired scale.

Lastly, many startups in India are creating solutions that are a “me-too” of solutions applied in different contexts. Such solutions might have tactical outcomes, but clearly many more entrepreneurs must place big bets in the many structural gaps that exist in the industry. Constantly scouting research from University and research agencies and identifying the market-scalable solutions will be the smart entrepreneur’s approach.

In summary, I find the healthcare industry to be uniquely poised at an inflection point; it is important that positive disruptions are enabled by the multiple stakeholders across the ecosystem.

The post Is The Healthcare Sector In India Ripe For Disruption? appeared first on Inc42 Media.

While healthcare in India is made up of verticals with varying levels of growth and development in each segment. When you look at the healthtech landscape in India, telemedicine and epharma are the leading segments in terms of number of players. Between these, epharmas are set for the biggest growth, since they tap into the existing and robust ecommerce infrastructure.

According to a new EY report, epharma players are expected to reach a combined market size of $2.7 Bn by 2023 from about$360 Mn currently in the next four years.

The key growth drivers for epharma market are increase in internet penetration and smartphone ownership along with the ease of ordering medications through an ecommerce platform, increase in chronic diseases, rising per capita income and resultant healthcare spend.

Epharma presents a total addressable market size of $9.3 Bn as of 2019 globally and is estimated to grow at a CAGR of 18.1% to reach$18.1 Bn by 2023. Interestingly, 35% of the domestic pharma market relates to chronic medications and the remaining 65% to acute medicines. Out of this, epharmacies are expected to penetrate 85% of the chronic market and 40% of the acute medicine market by 2023, so there’s still more room for growth beyond that year.

This expected rise in the acute medicine market from 25% in 2019 can be attributed to an improvement in last-mile logistics through collaboration with local pharmacies and integrating existing hyperlocal models.

“The epharmacy market is expected to grow at a substantial pace in the next four years”, according to Ankur Pahwa, Partner and National Leader – E-Commerce and Consumer Internet, EY India. Pahwa added that the renewed focus of the government and consumers on healthcare spending, and the faster adoption of internet in India . It will not only create value for the customers but also generate a host of B2B opportunities going forward,” said

In addition to the delivery of medicines and medical devices, epharmacies are also branching out to basic diagnostics, eprescriptions and health insurance services to enhance stickiness and engagement with customers. It also lower acquisition costs, help improve unit economics and widen the services portfolio.

There has been, however, a legal tussle in the Indian pharmaceutical industry, which set back the industry for a bit last year and early this year

Healthcare funding has soared from 16 Mn in 2014 to 50 Mn in 2018. The number of deals went up from 26 in 2014 to 116 in 2017, and then fell down to 69 in 2018, following Madras High Court’s ban on selling medicines online. A similar ban by the Delhi High Court followed suit. Both the courts had directed the central government to make a clear stand on the rules around epharmacies.

According to an estimate by Inc42 DataLabs, there more than 4,800 active healthtech startups in India. There was an overall increase of 45.06% in the total investment made in healthtech startups in 2018. Overall, healthtech startups have raised $504 Mn, as per Inc42 DataLabs’ funding report 2018. The number of investment deals witnessed a 40.51% decline from 116 in 2017 to 69 deals in 2018 in the healthtech sector.

The post In The Race to Scale, Indian Epharma Market To Touch $2.7 Bn By 2023: EY appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Pristyn Care, a healthcare delivery startup that offers patients a range of elective surgeries across proctology, gynaecology, urology and ENT, has raised $4 Mn in Series A funding round from Sequoia India. The company will use the capital to improve its medical capabilities, invest in technology and expand its team of medical professionals.

Founded in late 2018 Harsimarbir Singh, Dr Vaibhav Kapoor and Dr Garima Sawhney, Pristyn Care specialises in offering patients affordable advanced surgical care through innovative surgical techniques and recovery measures. Till date, they have facilitated over 2000 surgeries, performed by a team of experienced doctors specialising in the areas of minimal access surgery, laser, cosmetic & aesthetic gynaecology, laparoscopic surgery, infertility and onco gynaecology.

“There is a significant need to improve day care procedures in India. Our vision is to transform the future of healthcare by using improved medical techniques, personalised patient care and support that caters to the specialised medical requirements of patients,” said Harsimarbir Singh, cofounder of Pristyn Care.

“We believe there is a huge opportunity in the healthcare sector and are very excited that Sequoia India has bought into our vision. Our association with them will help us build world-class healthcare solutions for the Indian consumer,” he added.

Community Based Asset Light Model Leading Way For Pristyn

The company follows an asset-light model, leveraging the medical infrastructure of existing partner hospitals and equipping them with state-of-the-art medical equipment. They are also building relevant technology to drive efficiency and scalability in their operations.

With a focus on patient experience, Pristyn Care provides a concierge service to seamlessly guide the patients through the journey from diagnosis to recovery.

“Our goal and aim is to bring the same level of advanced surgical care to a patient’s neighborhood in Tier 2 or 3 town such as  Ranchi or Gwalior as it is in Delhi or Hyderabad,” said Harsimarbir to Inc42.

“We are doing this by using the most advanced medical treatment/medical equipment for our focus disease lines, even to the extent that we equip our hospital partners to use them as required for our patients.  We have invested heavily in improving the surgical journey by solving problems such as  Insurance clearance, diagnostic or radiology tests etc,” he added.

Ashish Agrawal, Principal, Sequoia Capital India Advisors believes that the healthcare journey for patients in India involves multiple steps and service providers, which ends up being cumbersome and overwhelming.

“ Their community of medical professionals, coupled with their asset light model, should help them scale with strong economics. Sequoia India is excited to partner with Pristyn Care in their mission to provide high-quality healthcare delivery and streamline the patient experience,” he added.

Pristyn Care is currently operational in 20 clinics across Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, the startup plans to expand its clinic network to 50 by December 2019.

Existing Opportunity In Indian Healthcare

The healthcare delivery startup believes that there is a huge opportunity in the healthcare sector and that their association with Sequoia India will help them build world-class healthcare solutions for the Indian consumer.

According to a March 2019 report by IBEF, healthcare market in india is expected to reach $372 Bn by 2022. The report further adds that India’s competitive advantage lies in its large pool of well-trained medical professionals. India is also cost competitive compared to its peers in Asia and Western countries. The cost of surgery in India is about one-tenth of that in the US or Western Europe.

This has fuelled the growth of startups providing after-care services for surgery or critical illness patients. Apart from Pristyn Care, a few other notable names here are Zoctr, Portea Medical, Care24 among others.

The increasing investor interest in the sector further strengthens the available opportunity. According to Inc42 Datalabs estimate, there was an overall increase of 45.06% in the total investment made in healthtech startups in 2018.

The post Healthtech Startup Pristyn Care Raises $4 Mn From Sequoia India appeared first on Inc42 Media.

We are living in a time where unhealthy lifestyle and food choices are easy to succumb to. Consumers are exposed to unhealthy food and harmful substances, if not willingly through unhealthy choices, then unknowingly through adulteration in food products, especially in a huge market like India. Add to this problems such as pollution and stress-related lifestyle diseases, you can see why fatal diseases are on the rise today.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has identified non-communicable diseases — including diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular diseases — as one of the ten threats to global health in 2019. The major factors attributed to the rise of these are the increase in the use of tobacco, lack of physical fitness, abuse of alcohol and other substances, unhealthy diets and increased air pollution. These diseases are collectively responsible for over 70% of all deaths globally.

Such threats have, in turn, led to the inception of several startups working to meet the goals of the WHO and the United Nations (UN). In India, most startups are focusing on providing fitness or workout solutions for weight loss, providing nutrition tips and recipes, but there are also some that are trying to bring all-natural, ayurvedic alternatives to Indians to enable healthier living. Mumbai-based Kapiva is doing exactly that with its range of products developed on the principles of ayurveda.

Kapiva was founded in 2015 by Ameve Sharma, who was later joined by Shrey Badhani as a cofounder, owing to the major role that ayurveda has played in both their lives. While Badhani got introduced to it owing to chronic health issues since the age of four, Sharma is the scion of the 100-year old Baidyanath Group, a renowned company in the ayurveda space. Kapiva’s vision is to not only to provide ayurveda-based nutrition products, but also to bring balance into consumers’ lives through these products.

Kapiva Believes Ayurveda To Be The “Mother Of All Healing”

The name Kapiva is derived from the three doshas or faults in the human body according to the principles of ayurveda – Kapha, Pitta, Vata. When these doshas are in a balanced state in the body, it results in holistic health and wellness for an individual. “People see ayurveda as a curative solution, but in reality, it is more about keeping the body in balance,” says Sharma.

The startup aims to provide a healthy alternative to all people’s needs, be it through food or beauty products. With manufacturing in Jodhpur and Kolkata, Kapiva sources ingredients for its products from various locations, depending on the product itself.

It focuses mainly on the metro or Tier 1 cities in India for sales, which have a higher incidence of ailments from air pollution and adulteration. Kapiva products appeal most to those who take pride in the Indian traditions of food and wellness, and are willing to experiment with products that are natural or sourced in line with ayurvedic principles.

The post Kapiva Is Getting India To Hop On Organic Nutrition Bandwagon With The Help Of Ayurveda appeared first on Inc42 Media.

Healthtech startup 1MG has closed its $70 Mn Series D round led by Corisol Holdings, along with the World Bank’s investment vertical IFC. 

Other investors including Redwood Global, Korea Omega Healthcare Fund, existing investors such as Sequoia Capital, Maverick Ventures, HBM Healthcare investments, Omidyar Network and Kae Capital also participated in the round. 

The company said it would use the funds to expand the reach of its diagnostic labs to 100 cities in India, and make epharmacy services available in Tier 3 cities as well as villages. Further, it said it will invest in building its data science team for new products such as a digital doctor and AI-powered health bots.

Prashant Tandon, CEO of 1MG, said the company is looking for comprehensive coverage of all of India. “We’re setting up the supply chain, logistics and infrastructure to make this happen, and are also shoring up on partnerships,” 

The Gurugram-headquartered company had earlier raised INR 314 Cr ($45.4 Mn) in a funding round between December 2018 and March 2019. According to Inc42 Datalabs, the company has raised above $100 Mn in multiple funding rounds. 

1MG was launched in April 2015 after Healthkart separated its generic drug search business, HealthkartPlus, and rebranded it as 1MG. The company has three business verticals — Pharmaceuticals, Labs, and Doctors. The company founders include Prashant Tandon, Gaurav Agarwal, and Vikas Chauhan.

1MG claimed that more than 70 Mn unique patients from across India accessed its platform over the last year to get epharmacy, ediagnostics and econsultation services, while its healthcare content saw over 2.5 Billion annual pageviews. 

In FY 2018, 1MG Technologies reported revenue of INR 39.8 Cr ($5.4 Mn), a 223% jump from the last financial year. Of the total revenue, the epharmacy contributed INR 23.2 Cr ($3.1 Mn) while the diagnostics share was INR 8.8 Cr ($1.1 Mn) in FY18, an increase of 268% and 214% respectively from FY2017. The company had further reported a net loss of INR 88 Cr ($11.9 Mn) in FY2018, which is about a 50% increase from the last financial year.

The healthcare industry in India is said to be one of the fastest growing sectors backed by India’s rising income, health awareness, and access to insurance, but also due to the increase in lifestyle and stress-related diseases. The IBEF has estimated the Indian healthcare market to be valued at $372Bn by 2022.

According to Inc42’s The State of Startup Ecosystem Report 2018, there are a total of 4,892 startups in the Indian healthtech space. Last year saw an overall increase of 45.06% in the total investments in healthtech startups. Overall, the healthtech startups in India raised a total of $504 Mn between 2014-2018.

Startups competing with 1MG in the epharmacy space include Pharmeasy, Netmeds, and Medlife. With its labs and doctors vertical, the company also competes with a slew of telemedicine startups such as Practo, Lybrate, mfine, and DocsApp.

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