Indian healthcare is at the cusp of a next phase of personalised care heralded by new age technologies such as artificial intelligence and robotics. Managing director of Roche Information Solutions India Raja Jamalamadaka spoke to DH’s Shakshi Jain sharing his thoughts on healthcare startups in the country and larger issues plaguing the overall industry, besides shedding light on the Switzerland-headquartered fortune 500 company’s plans for its India arm.
Edited excerpts.
Any expansion plans for the company’s India arm?
Very much so. We’re doing a lot of activities on cutting edge products and patentable things. We’re moving into a new place which is about ten times the size of the current office space we have in Pune. We’re also growing in terms of the traditional metrics such as headcount - yes, we’ll be quadrupling in less than 2 years. In three years we would have quadrupled, maybe even quintupled actually in terms of strength.
How do you see healthcare startups faring in India ?
It is really growing fast with very practical use cases being fixed right now. This year is not the best year to talk about funding but it’s now getting much better. The startups no more are just a copy of what’s happening in other countries. Now there are very unique ones solving very specific problems being faced in India.
Do you have a favourite newcomer in the healthtech startup space ?
There are startups in India already doing really cutting edge work of application of generative AI in healthcare. For example, superspecialists, because you don’t have many of those in India and they’ve to be shared by many. It’s a waste of time to have him/her write prescriptions and enter data into the system. AI can automate all of these kinds of things. There are startups doing this right now in India. They are being piloted at a few places that I am aware of.
What would you say are the top three needs of the Indian healthcare sector today?
Number 1 is a relatively stronger regulatory environment than what exists right now. Government is putting a lot of effort to improve the regulatory space but a lot more might be required.
The second and very important is - scale matters in healthcare - because trends come when there is scale. In India, if you were to go to the second tier, third tier cities, you probably have a different healthcare setup, of a different quality than what you get in the cities. You have a lot of patients, few specialists, ever fewer superspecialists, the ratio is not conducive for machine efficiency.
Third is mindset. It’s improving but still people go for a diagnosis only when extremely ill.
What would be a realistic timeline for AI transforming the Indian healthcare system ?
Stage 1 could be next year. It’s quick because its admin (clerical load comes down) and it’s already happening in parts of India.
Stage 2 is going to take a little more time. It needs solutions that need space. For instance, to read a typical breast cancer report it is petabytes of data because the entire breast is scanned. We need space to store petabytes of data. To read it, we need a high speed computer - even a supercomputer takes 9 hours. That is already happening in the West, I see this happening here in maybe 2-3 years.
The third one is a little more distant because huge investments are needed to do robotic surgery. The robotic arm costs crores. It needs a high end air conditioner. There can’t be dust as it can damage the robotic arm. That I think is a few more years away, maybe 4-5 years away.
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