Shahid Akhter, editor, ETHealthworld, spoke to Dr. Kanav Kahol, CEO, DIVOC Labs, to know more about the role of at home diagnostic tests conducted by phlebotomists at home and the impact of telehealth on clinical laboratories.
Why telemedicine labs are important to combat any kind of ‘Epidemic and Pandemic’
Healthtech companies are rapidly expanding the nation’s care service network by launching virtual care telehealth platforms, cultivating an inclusive environment in healthcare. With a growing trend towards adopting virtual doctor’s visits especially during the pandemic, there is an ever-increasing need for clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups to prepare for fulfilling virtually prescribed lab test orders and bringing the services closer to patients through retail settings and urgent care clinics. The clinical laboratories need to ensure that they match the pace of rapid transformation in medical science. Services like auto validation of diagnosis and touchless inventory control need to be popularised to deliver high standards. This will also help the lab staff to focus on the complexity of testing options and ultimately accelerate the process of diagnosis and treatment.
What are the company’s unique delivery solutions involving AI, IoT, and healthcare technologies?
Witnessing the unprecedented challenges put forth by Covid-19 for global health, we formed DIVOC Health to enable innovations for a healthier world. We are using innovative products and approaches to address the needs of the Indian healthcare market. We understand that availability of accurate and high quality tests is critical to our fight against the pandemic and therefore, we identified the GeneDrive RT PCR Covid-19 tests as being particularly well suited to the Indian market due to its reduced processing steps, thermostability, and high quality manufacture.
Through Divoc Labs, we envision empowering global health through impactful innovations and are continuously striving to create the most advanced digital diagnostic laboratory network enabling the connected world. We specialise in our facilities that include cytopathology, molecular biology, hematology, serology, clinical microscopy, clinical microbiology and clinical chemistry. Our instant home test kit is a major play with telemedicine and we are also enabling instant drug delivery. We have a strong background in research and development where we broadly focus on validation, knowledge management, new technology evaluation, new assay development, contract research, R&D services in the field of genomics and proteomics.
How many patients are you reaching every day through DIVOC labs? What is the projected number of patients that you will be able to serve?
We are currently catering to 500 patients a day and are looking forward to expanding to 5000 patients a day within the next 1 year.
How does the healthcare sector attract investors? How will it continue to do the same?
The healthcare sector being the fastest growing sectors in India is attracting investors’ interest from all across the globe. This growth can be contributed to the increase in healthcare awareness, ageing population, income levels, government’s focus on providing universal healthcare and growing health insurance penetration. Additionally, the availability of advanced technologies at low costs, a skilled workforce and government’s conducive policies are alluring these investments. India is gradually becoming a favourable investment destination and initiatives like promoting the ease of doing business, strengthening of research and development (R&D) and promoting the start-up culture, are guiding the investors’ interest.
What is the future of health tech? What will be your approach towards it?
The healthtech industry in India is witnessing a period of tremendous growth and unprecedented advancements. The start-ups are catering to several broad categories like home healthcare, pharmacy, biotech, and appointments etc. Driven by greater health awareness, rising incomes and better health insurance, the ecosystem is constantly evolving. As a result, technology and business are going to be mutually driving each other in the future. Further, with a rapid shift from a treatment-specific approach to a therapeutic and holistic approach, the medicine is getting more personalized which signals the innovative application of machine learning, artificial intelligence, augmented analytics and blockchain. The future definitely looks bright.
What would you say about the capital raised by you till now? Who are the investors and can you share the number?
We have raised capital from our operations and from angel investors and friends and family. We are looking at structured raise within the next few months.
What are your future plans, investment, funding and where are you planning to open your 20 labs in India?
The idea is to create a decentralized version of labs wherein our phlebotomists are the agents that bring lab to you. We are looking at a series A funding round soon and would be interested in opening 20 labs across North and East India.
How DIVOC Lab is providing the facility of home testing ?
We are essentially refining our protocols to allow a combination of high end molecular testing in our state of the art labs and conduct some of the important tests at the premises of the client using validated FDA approved Point of Care technologies. We are working with our home care agents who can provide end to end diagnostic services for our clients. Its an exciting time where the lab comes to you and we are looking forward to widespread adoption of this service.
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