Deepak Sahni feels the vast unorganised sector, with its lack of credibility and reliability, gives him an opportunity to increase his presence
Image: Amit Verma
The Delhi High Court’s interim order in December, seeking a ban on ‘illegal’ sale of medicines online, raised Deepak Sahni’s hopes. Though not into offline retailing of medicines, the founder of home diagnostics service provider Healthians had been grappling with the bane of unregulated, small diagnostic labs across the country. “Unregulated and unlicensed sale of medicines,” the court remarked in its verdict, “will increase the risk of spurious, misbranded and sub-standard drugs being sold.”
The 36-year-old founder and CEO of Healthians agrees and takes the argument forward with unregulated and unlicenced diagnostic labs as well. “I am waiting for a ‘regulatory moment’ in my segment,” says Sahni, who reckons absence of regulation in diagnostic business in India—a segment where over 80 percent of the players are unorganised—poses danger to people’s health. “Health care, especially diagnostics, is not ecommerce where one can hope for multi-fold growth overnight or in a year,” he says.
Started in 2015, Sahni has seen his business grow at a rapid pace. It ended the first year of operations with a paltry revenue of ₹1.1 crore, but the figure leapfrogged to ₹18. 5 crore last fiscal. It is now clocking a run rate of ₹80 crore. Healthians, which has raised over $4 million so far from investors such as Beenext, Digital Garage and Yuvraj Singh-backed YouWeCan Ventures, is operational across 30 cities in North India and recently forayed into Bengaluru, as it attempts to become a pan-India player.
The Indian diagnostic market is pegged at $8 billion and is growing at a compounded annual rate of 15 percent. While pathology makes up 80 percent, the rest is occupied by radiology. The massive size of the unorganised market provides a big opportunity to Healthians. Reason: As the credibility of the unorganised sector takes a hit due to the suspect quality of their medical reports, people are moving towards branded players that run their chain of labs.
(This story appears in the 01 March, 2019 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)