India offers a great market opportunity for healthcare start-ups around the world. With over 1.3 billion population majority of people pay for healthcare expenses out-of-pocket. Given this ecosystem, healthcare providers are driven to innovative ideas that improve care, increase accessibility and reduce costs.

The Indian healthcare market is expected to reach $280 Billion by 2020 driven by rising incomes, greater health awareness, lifestyle related diseases and increasing access to payers. The current value of the medical device/diagnostics market is estimated at $5 Billion and growing. In India, there is one doctor for every 1,457 people which is lower than the WHO norm of 1:1000. This goes on to show the huge potential lying in front of healthcare startups in the 1.3 Billion plus people economy.

Healthcare in India faces the growing challenges of access and affordability. Technology has the ability to address the needs of providers and change the dynamic of health care delivery. India is one of the nations where the mortalities and morbidities of both communicable and non-communicable diseases are very high – creating a serious need for technology intervention to manage these diseases effectively amidst current infrastructure shortage. And health care start-ups have a critical role to play. In the last 2-3 years, digital health in India has significantly moved from ‘Good to have’ to ‘Must have’. Contributing factors could be many, but primarily attributing to the digital impetus from the government and the recent release of the national health policy, there is not only traction but exponential growth in the number of tech product start-ups and the funding that they are garnering.

FTR4H creates a global innovation ecosystem to drive digital health. During Medical Fair India, the international society will operate a lounge (booth # K65) where digital health aficionados from India and abroad will mingle, network and exchange insights on how technologies like Mobile, IOT, AI, Blockchain, Data and Robotics transform healthcare. The lounge also facilitates a 3 days conference including the 2nd FTR4H INDIA AWARD, taking place on Friday March 6 from 16:00 to 17:00. The ten promising start-ups who qualified for participation are Aaiqure Health, Advait Home Health, Doctors Bazaar, MutelCare, Onco Connect, Phable, Vizi, vTitan, Wellthy Therapeutics plus one wildcard. Ecosystem Partners like Data Natives, GINSEP, HealthStart, InnovatioCuris, T-Hub and the Digital Transformation Partner NASSCOM Center of Excellence for IOT & AI provide prices for the 3 winning teams. Accelerators and VCs like HealthQuad and MOX are part of the jury. A meet-up powered by Data Natives and Happy Hours make the FTR4H lounge the place to be for the HealthTech crowd.
 

(Medical Fair India Press)