REWIND 2022: India’s bioscience stakeholders share their views

New Delhi: As we get set to enter the year 2023, let’s see what 2022 meant for the industry. Here are the comments from leading voices:

“The COVID 19 pandemic has changed the healthcare landscape in India. We witnessed significant positive intent from the public, the government, private and public healthcare institutions to come together and tackle the health crisis. For a country of our size, the speed at which decisions were made, infrastructure was built, and care was delivered has been laudable. There have been many lessons from the pandemic, and we are seeing a shift in perspective. The latest TB Mukt Bharat Abhiyan initiative from the government is commendable,” mentioned Anand K, CEO, SRL diagnostics.

Anand added further: “Healthcare delivery is expected to shift from ‘’illness to wellness’’, from ‘’doctor first to diagnosis first’’ and from ‘’healthcare facilities to homes of patients’’. Personalized, affordable, always-on, always-connected, predictive and convenience-based diagnostics is the diagnostics of future. We saw a glimpse of this during the pandemic and there may not be a time very far when this will become the mainstay.”

“At Glamyo health, we are reimagining the secondary care surgeries landscape in India. We started this company with one sole mission of solving for Indian Patients the triad of – Access, Affordability, and Quality. Despite 3 covid waves, in the short span of 24 months, we have been able to provide free medical counseling to more than 4,00,000 patients with an NPS of 70. Over the next 12 months, we intend to disburse healthcare financing worth INR 100 Cr through our fintech partners. Our mission is to make high quality affordable secondary surgical care accessible to all,” said Dr. Preet Pal Thakur, Co-founder of Glamyo Health.

Dr. Ajay Sharma, Chief Medical Director, Eye-Q said, “People have now adapted to a more conscious lifestyle. Additionally, the government has been proactive in strengthening the healthcare framework in the country by launching schemes like Ayushman Bharat, Aam Aadmi Bima Yojna, etc. However, still, there is a lot of work to be done to ensure that everyone receives quality healthcare in the country, and it is a long way to go. It demands collective efforts from all ends to fill in the existing gaps in the healthcare system in India. The new-age healthcare startups will also play a major role in ensuring that India has a proper healthcare infrastructure that caters to all individuals’ needs.”

For the third year in a row following the Covid-19 pandemic, we have witnessed an increase in demand for anxiety and depression treatment, as well as treatment for trauma and stressor-related disorders and substance misuse disorders. Subsequently, due to the increasing mental health awareness, mental telehealth services augmented access to individuals who would otherwise be unable to receive treatment. Even more intriguing is the fact that younger generations, those between the ages of 16 and 30, are becoming more informed of the necessity to keep up with mental health issues and are seeking out ways to combat them for themselves as well as for their loved ones,” said Krishna Veer Singh, Co-Founder, Lissun.

Himesh Joshi, Co-founder and CEO, Ayu Health Hospitals said, “The last two years have highlighted the gaps in our country’s healthcare infrastructure at various levels. Access to quality healthcare, pricing transparency and patient experience were major challenges the healthcare sector was facing. Most other sectors like travel, hospitality etc have overcome similar challenges by leveraging technology.”

“In 2022, we are glad that we could make a difference to this with our asset-light and tech-enabled platform by networking with small and medium-sized hospitals, standardizing health care delivery, pricing, and enhancing the overall patient experience. Our focus on better patient experience has helped us achieve a Google rating of 4.7 across hospitals which is the best in the industry, and we’ve also consistently scored an industry-leading 80%+ NPS. Apart from this, we could also create new job roles while most companies had to lay-off their employees this year,” Johi added.

Mandeep Singh Kumar, Vice-President and Country GM, Intuitive India said: “Driven by the desire to improve clinical outcomes, the adoption of Robotic-Assisted Surgery (RAS) exhibited a high level of interest in 2022. The increased adoption was seen across market segments – be it private hospitals or government institutions. This year, we also observed that more and more hospitals from non-metro cities were eager to install da Vinci programmes and provide better access to patients across a wide geography. The increased number of installations has coincided with our efforts towards improving surgeon training programs, quantifying the impact of surgical outcomes, and reducing economic barriers to access. The year 2022 also marked an important milestone of 100 da Vinci robotic programs in India.”

Kumar outlines the future expectations: “As medical care continues to advance, the primary driving force behind the surgical space will be focused on minimizing hospital stay and associated costs while ensuring minimal post-operative complications. Hence, we continue to see a great future for next-gen technology like da Vinci in the years to come.  We are committed to making the benefits of da Vinci accessible for patients through sensitizing the entire ecosystem about its benefits and the value it brings to the patients, care providers, and payors. This will help ensure a more holistic healthcare system and we feel both humbled and privileged to be a part of it.”

In his comments, Dinesh Dalvi, Managing Director, ANSSI mentioned, “The year 2022 has witnessed a large number of rising cases of spine and neck-related pains. This is usually inflicted due to modern lifestyle and other prevalent health issues. At times this chronic pain is due to an injury or mishap. To cure this issue, multiple solutions exist presently.”

“At ANSSI, we help our patients through the latest technology – Spinal Decompression Treatment. This USA-patent technology does not use any surgery and needles and has cured numerous patients with spinal disorders across the globe. In the coming year, we look forward to expanding our services in Mulund, Vashi, Kalva, Kalyan, Andheri, Kandivali, Nagpur, Hyderabad, Pune and Nashik and will look at adding more. With back and neck pain being chronic in nature, we aim to provide relief without surgery and in the most painless way possible,” added Mr. Dalvi.