Healthcare Startups To Increase Footprints
$58 Bn of Healthcare Market in 2014, Growing at a CAGR of 15%, expected to touch $90Bn in 2017 . A mere 5106 Number of Private Hospitals in India, 80% Hospitals have only 20 to 100 bed facilities, leaving a lot of space for Tech-Enabled Healthcare Delivery...
Technology-enabled healthcare delivery startups iClinic Healthcare and iKure Techsoft
are tying up funds to widen their footprint in the country's assisted
remote medical consultations segment.
Delhi-based iClinic Healthcare,
which is backed by high net worth individuals including Britannia chief Varun Berry,
expects to raise close to Rs 25 crore over the next three months to
take its assisted remote consultations in super specialty services
pan-India.
"Varun and I have friends in corporate circles and we're 25-50 per cent
into fund raising.We'll dilute to the tune of 25 per cent," said Sanjoy Mukerji,
founder of iClinic, which is operational in Delhi and Kolkata. The
startup, which is two-years-old, provides specialist consults through a
hub and spoke model in 40 3G-enabled upcountry areas where specialists
don't exist. It ties up with 20-30 bed hospitals in these towns where a
local doctor facilitates consultations with city-based specialists via
video call.
iClinic plans to expand to 25 cities, with operations starting in
Chandigarh, Lucknow, Ahmedabad and Bangalore by first half of 2015.
Similarly, Kolkata-based iKure Techsoft is in talks with venture
capitalists to raise $2 million in Series A round of funding to
facilitate growth plans in east and northeast India. iKure provides
medical services in West Bengal through its cloudbased software Wireless
Health Incident Monitoring System (WHIMS). WHIMS enables integration
and contact between rural medical practitioners (RMPs) and citybased
doctors through transmission of patient data from rural health clinics
(RHCs).
Currently
operational with 28 RHCs across 110 villages and six doctors on its
payrolls, the company plans to enter Orissa by January 2015 and Bihar by
April of next year with 12 and 20 RHCs, respectively. "We plan to open
300 RHCs by late 2017," said Sujay Santra, its founder.
Currently
operational with 28 RHCs across 110 villages and six doctors on its
payrolls, the company plans to enter Orissa by January 2015 and Bihar by
April of next year with 12 and 20 RHCs, respectively. "We plan to open
300 RHCs by late 2017," said Sujay Santra, its founder.
Currently operational with 28 RHCs across 110 villages and six doctors
on its payrolls, the company plans to enter Orissa by January 2015 and
Bihar by April of next year with 12 and 20 RHCs, respectively. "We plan
to open 300 RHCs by late 2017," said Sujay Santra, its founder.
India has 5,106 private hospitals, 80 per cent of which are 20-100 bed
facilities, according to data from KPMG, a consultancy. Of late, the
country has seen an emergence of technology-enabled models, like iClinic
and iKure, which are addressing lack of healthcare facilities in
underserved regions. "People are realising the need to solve issues of
affordability and accessibility using non-traditional approaches which
can be implemented faster and are scalable. Technology's helping
innovation in a big way and the overall environment is more conducive
and encouraging of it," said Charu Sehgal, senior director,
consulting-strategy & operations, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India.
"A thousand towns in India have 3G, and 30-35 cities have specialists.
Additionally, India has 5,000 firms where over 100 workers on average
may find this concept interesting," said iClinic's Mukerji. iClinic has
tied up with Jubilant, Vodafone and Aircel to service employees in
their upcountry offices or factories as part of its corporate vertical
and is in conversation with others. It's also in talks with a group of
doctors and HNIs in Africa to replicate the model there. Central India, parts of the north like Jammu and Kashmir, Uttaranchal
and the northeast are blank spots as far medical care goes.
A big scalability issue around these models, experts said, is low paying capacity of target consumers. "Forty per cent of India's population has little access to quality healthcare, primarily the lower middle class, which does not spend more than Rs 5,000-10,000 annually on family health." This is approximately a $5-10 billion opportunity as an overall addressable market, but the realizable market becomes very small," said Amit Mookim, Head Healthcare at KPMG.
A big scalability issue around these models, experts said, is low paying capacity of target consumers. "Forty per cent of India's population has little access to quality healthcare, primarily the lower middle class, which does not spend more than Rs 5,000-10,000 annually on family health." This is approximately a $5-10 billion opportunity as an overall addressable market, but the realizable market becomes very small," said Amit Mookim, Head Healthcare at KPMG.
"It's not easy to create economically viable models to access these
people." iClinic, which charges Rs 1,000 per consult, generates monthly
revenues of Rs 3-4 lakh, while iKure that launched in 2010, clocked in
Rs 70 lakh last fiscal. Its services cost Rs 90, including medicines.
Other roadblocks include manpower shortage, poor ecosystem supporting
healthcare startups like incubation cells, and paucity of early-stage
capital.
Ref: An ET Article
Currently
operational with 28 RHCs across 110 villages and six doctors on its
payrolls, the company plans to enter Orissa by January 2015 and Bihar by
April of next year with 12 and 20 RHCs, respectively. "We plan to open
300 RHCs by late 2017," said Sujay Santra, its founder.
Currently
operational with 28 RHCs across 110 villages and six doctors on its
payrolls, the company plans to enter Orissa by January 2015 and Bihar by
April of next year with 12 and 20 RHCs, respectively. "We plan to open
300 RHCs by late 2017," said Sujay Santra, its founder.
