Covid proves boon for Hyderabad’s health startups

HYDERABAD: The Covid-19 outbreak that adversely hit most businesses, has proved to be a boon for Hyderabad’s health tech startups — many of them faring better than before now.
Among those that saw a significant jump, in demand and revenues, in Huwel Lifesciences that has been associated with developing molecular diagnostics since 2017. “The pandemic has given great impetus to the business. We are basically into developing PCR (polymerase chain reaction) based diagnosis and are currently supply the RT-PCR kits to Telangana as well as many other states. At present, we deliver roughly 20 lakh kits to seven states across India,” said Shesheer Kumar, director of the firm. He shared how funding from venture capitalists, philanthropic foundations and other grants for startups that can offer ready solutions for the pandemic, have gone up significantly.

Designocare Solutions Private Limited, a startup that came up in March, is a beneficiary of this shift in trend. While its founders initially had a tough time raising funds or convincing distributors about the medical products that it was developing, it’s now a much smoother ride. “Before Covid-19, companies were not keen on putting their resources in health techs unless one had an app or a software. Since we were more into hardware, we kept being asked about what the need for creating it was. The standard response was: why do we need to buy an expensive product from you when we can get it from China? That attitude has changed now,” said Kanika Bansal, founder director of the company that has come up with a wearable medicine dispenser, which dispenses medicines in a timely manner, and also a ventilator.
Apart from new entrants, many existing ventures too have picked up pace after they tweaked their business — like moving from building physiotherapy hardware to online consultations or transition from prototyping to developing medical products — to keep themselves relevant. Case in point: Startoon Labs which was dabbling in physiotherapy pre-Covid. “The firm was looking at scaling up just before the pandemic. When they realised that their service — since physiotherapy is a contact-based solution — would take a hit, they repositioned themselves. Now, they offer clould-based medical consultations, which is in demand,” said Deepti Ravula, chief operating officer, We-Hub while citing the example another startup, Adiro, incubated at the facility. Involved in analysing genetic material earlier, it has now moved base to trading medical equipment.