Beginning With the Journey & EnrouteFor Rajneesh Bhandari, first generation serial entrepreneur, spoke to
BWDisrupt about how it was only natural to move from highly successful ventures in telecommunications to developing path-breaking medical diagnostic systems and protocols. Neuroequilibrium is now in the process of establishing India’s first super-speciality healthcare chain of vertigo and balance disorders clinics across India and overseas to impact a million patients by 2021.
Co-founded in March 2015 by Rajneesh, Dr Anirban Biswas, leading vertigo specialist and author of authoritative medical books, and Dr Anita Bhandari, Singapore-trained neurotologist, NeuroEquilibrium™ Diagnostic Systems Pvt Ltd is at the vanguard of cutting edge healthcare technologies.
The healthtech startup caters to the huge gap that exists between the enormous number of vertigo, dizziness and balance disorder patients and the lack of targeted treatment in India. About 20-40% of the population is affected by dizziness at some time in their life, with 5% suffering from vertigo in any given year approximately 6 crore Indians are affected by this condition. The goal of NeuroEquilibrium™ Diagnostic Systems Pvt Ltd is to transform this domain in the healthcare sector through disruptive cloud technology and cutting-edge diagnostic equipment, developed and manufactured in India by NeuroEquilibrium™.
“The mission of NeuroEquilibrium™,” said Rajneesh Bhandari recently in an interview, “is to treat one million patients by 2021 and 5 million in the next 10 years through our indigenously developed world-class diagnostic equipment and the 125 specialized vertigo and balance clinics we are setting up across India and beyond.”
Launched in April 2016, the healthtech company has installed the state-of-the-art diagnostic equipment in 12 hospitals & clinics , including in Cyprus and the prestigious Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi. It has also applied for three patents for the breakthrough equipment designed and manufactured by it.
The NeuroEquilibrium™ USPNeuroEquilibrium™ Assessment Platform is the most advanced vertigo and balance assessment platform in the world and has been developed in collaboration with top neurotologists of India. The comprehensive diagnostic system integrates various diagnostic tests on one platform, thus helping the NeuroEquilibrium™ team of highly skilled and trained doctors to evaluate the functioning and coordination of the balance system of the body, eyes, inner ears and proprioceptive system.
The Platform employs a three pronged strategy to fill the huge gap between the demand for and delivery of holistic treatment of vertigo and balance disorders, including the following-• collaborating with ENT and neurology specialists across India to set up vertigo and balance disorder clinics;
• setting up the specialized vertigo diagnostic equipment suite, developed and manufactured indigenously by NeuroEquilibrium™; and
• providing accurate diagnostic and customized vestibular rehabilitation support to the examining doctor by a panel of ENT specialist, neurologist and psychiatrist via cloud technology.
The diagnostic equipments have been developed in India in line with the ‘Make in India’ campaign and 3 patents have already been applied for. It is a comprehensive system, which integrates various diagnostic tests on one platform and sends the reports to a cloud server, which helps in providing proper diagnosis and treatment in real time to vertigo patients across diverse geographies.
NeuroEquilibrium is one of the few centers across the world developing virtual reality platform for patients who require vestibular rehabilitation. That the concept is in full traction mode and is set to further scale up in this year is evidenced from what Rajneesh had to say to
BWDisrupt. “We have already received interest from overseas, including from Bangladesh, Nepal, Africa, and CIS countries,” he said, pointing out that the precise diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation through cloud technology makes NeuroEquilibrium™ Diagnostic Systems a highly scalable venture across diverse terrain.
Overcoming ChallengesMost vertigo patients do not know which doctor to visit, oscillating among ENT specialists, neurologists, orthopaedics, physicians, etc. Also, most patients believe that vertigo does not have a cure and that they have to live with vertigo. Changing this mindset and educating the patients that vertigo is curable is the biggest challenge.
Investors Confidence in NeuroEquilibrium™ Bootstrapped till November, the Jaipur-based startup recently raised a seed round fund of USD250000 from the SEBI approved Unicorn India Ventures as a bridge round to Series A funding of USD 2.5 million in the next round.
Expressing full confidence in the investment, Anil Joshi, MD and founder of Unicorn India, the Mumbai-based seed fund, said, “The outlook is excellent for NeuroEquilibrium™. It fulfils all our criteria for early-stage investment and we expect it to continue to remain at the vanguard of health technologies in the coming years.”
A robust monetization model: The NeuroEquilibrium™ clinic-in-clinic model in collaboration with leading ENT and neurology clinics in the country to set up 125 specialized vertigo clinics is a robust monetization model. Under this model, NeuroEquilibrium™ provides the diagnostic equipment, technology, trained manpower, detailed analysis of tests and treatment protocols by a panel of specialist doctors via cloud technology at leading ENT and neurology clinics. All this is at very affordable cost so to benefit a larger number of patients. “Looking at the percentage of the population affected by the condition,” said co-founder Dr Anita Bhandari, “the growth prospects are very bright for our model, especially since the complete battery of tests cost less than an MRI.”
Seizing the MarketVertigo affects about 20% – 40% of the population at some point of time in their lives. 5% of the population suffers from vertigo and dizziness in any given year. This means that over 6 crore people in India are affected by vertigo and balance disorders. Unfortunately, vertigo and dizziness is a problem that is prevalent but is mostly undiagnosed or treated as a chronic, untreatable condition. Thus, there is a huge gap and an urgent need for specialized vertigo clinics across the country to provide an appropriate and customized management for vertigo and balance disorders.
The Way ForwardIn the short time since it was launched, NeuroEquilibrium™ has established 12 vertigo and balance disorder clinics. It is set to go into full-scale expansion in 2017, including setting up clinics overseas. “Since NeuroEquilibrium™ leverages cloud technology, we believe this is a very scalable model,” Rajneesh pointed out, adding that “the most promising markets, in addition to India , are South-East Asia and Africa.”
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Soumya is a young writer and journalist, with bachelors in Multimedia and Mass Communication. She is an alumini of the Asian College of Journalism, and finds politics and sustainability intriguing beats to work with.
