Practo to target insurance, pharma firms for growing business

Practo, the healthcare startup, plans to develop a platform with multiple stakeholders to expand business and create new revenue channels by partnering with insurance firms, medical device makers and pharmaceutical companies. The startups aim to facilitate real-time exchange of information and health records between patients and healthcare providers, and gain intelligence on consumer behavior by leveraging Practo’s consumer traction.

Shashank ND, co-founder and CEO Practo, said that “One of the new aspects we want to incorporate this year is payers, i.e., insurance companies, the government and corporates, people who essentially pay for medical expenses. Insurance has been the most significant movement we have made so far. We have been evaluating options with pharma companies and medical devices firms. These are in the longer term but that is where we tend to move towards”. The company recorded 100% jump in the number of patients visiting the platform in 2016 as against 2015, apart from an 81% increase in appointments booked. He also added “Medical devices would be able to share data with doctors and the doctors can provide you with insights based on the data. This way, healthcare will become more real-time and hence more preventive. These are possible today because of Internet-of-things driven medical devices, which can transfer data anywhere, anytime”.