Curofy, the community of verified doctors has appointed former Head of Products Limeroad, Abhishek Sharma as VP Products. As a seasoned campaigner, he has been a part of the start up ecosystem right from his early days at Flipkart. An IIT Delhi graduate rose up the ranks from a founding member of its technology team to become the Head of Products at Limeroad and has played a pivotal role in their success.
Abhishek has also tried his hand at entrepreneurship for a brief span of time when he started Offerbean.com, an eCommerce marketplace platform in 2011. With Abhishek in the team, the co-founders firmly believe that Curofy can certainly monetise their business without affecting the user experience.
Curofy has started pilots with major healthcare stake-holders in the industry. Pharma giants like GSK, Abbott, Sanofi are already onboard to take advantage of the ever-growing and highly engaged doctor’s community on Curofy. Curofy has also tied up with Philips in another deal that can prove to be crucial going into their next phase of growth.
Apart from the big names, various smaller firms have reached out to Curofy in order to get doctors on board economically. The projects range from product launches to webinar campaigns to brand recall to hard sales. The market for digital marketing of pharma products, medical devices, medical recruitment and medical content is expected to reach to north of US$1bn in India by 2021.
“The sheer range of projects the industry is coming up with is testimony of the potential they see in us.” says Pawan Gupta, co-founder, Curofy. “These pilots will also help us in zeroing in the best monetization paths for us.” he adds. As the co-founder puts it, so far so good till now. “The industry is looking to go digital. They have identified companies Curofy as a viable channel. This poses a serious challenge, as it has not been before. And we are definitely up for it”.
In a time when the medical industry as whole is looking to cut down marketing budgets not only because of rising competition but also because of various government regulations. Hence digital has emerged as viable option for the industry to mobilise their target audience. Incidentally, this movement is turning out to be a global phenomenon. As it turns healthcare industries all over the world were facing inefficiencies of some kind, which they are actively trying overcome. Hence Curofy is venturing into pilots in certain countries where the time seems right.
Curofy has started its pilots in countries like UAE, Lebanon, Turkey and Saudi Arabia. "The pilots were mainly to judge the markets in these countries. Though language has been a palpable barrier, we have received pretty great response especially from Turkey where the market is very similar to that of India’s.", says Gupta.
Curofy wants to make the doctors more efficient every day. And if they can solve the industries problem and yet keep the experience of the doctors intact, they would go a long way towards achieving their ambitious dream. They have weathered the storm. They now need to ride the wave. And with a team comprising of the best of talents available today, the dream is certainly on.
