The Exchanges

Q right, both being an investor and a founder multiple times. So, uh, for a founder, as, as this scale, right, uh, how hard is it is to balance the investor-founder relationship, uh, for the long run? Because investors might expect a different kind of a return when they enter in, but, you know, as things progress, might deliver or might not deliver on that expectation. How do you balance that?

A Absolutely. Yeah, no, it is, uh, it's a reality. No investor, uh, will, uh, believe that everything is gonna go exactly as the plan and it never does. They know that as well. The important thing is to be honest and, uh, to share where you stand and take the help in getting to the right place rather than to, um, uh, to hide or to not, Be totally transparent. That has been my learning because at the end of the day, like I said, we have to be on the same side of the table. So how do you make them feel that they're on the same side of the table so that we can all work together towards a good outcome? That has to be the mindset and with which you have to go. I believe that, uh, right at the time when you take the investment, Making the right choice is important that your, you have a founder, you have investors and board members who are aligned to you and aligned with you rather than those that are giving you the best valuation. So that is important.

AI assessment note: “The important thing is to be honest and, uh, to share where you stand”

Q that you are, you yourself are providing, you know, to your patients, uh, medical devices at home. So India as a market is like, eleven billion dollars of medical device equipment growing at eight percent and over 800 medical device manufacturers in India. How have you seen this industry transform over the last 1015? Yes. And what are the kind of devices that are getting built at scale in India?

A So firstly, let me clarify what we do and, uh, and then answer your question. Portia offers different kinds of medical equipment and not necessarily devices. There's a slight difference between the two in my head. Equipment that I talk of are things like medical grade beds, multipara monitors, DBT pumps for people who are bedridden to respiratory, different kinds of respiratory devices, ventilators, BiPAP, CPAP, oxygen concentrators. That's a whole segment. Then there is a mobility and geriatric care, like wheelchair walkers, um, and, uh, crutches and those kinds of things which are required by the elderly. So there's a whole range of medical equipment which are required for people to be, um, uh, taken well care of at home. So that's what Portia does. We offer this as a product that can be Rented by people or they can buy outright from us depending on what the economics of it. It's going to be long term. You take the wheel, you buy the wheelchair. You don't rent the wheelchair. It doesn't make sense. So that's how the, the whole thing works out. Now speaking about medical devices in India, um, there is, uh, In the respiratory category, I know there's a lot of medical, local medical devices that have got created in India. So, uh, different ranges of oxygen concentrate, especially around COVID, a lot of that got built over here. The other place where I'm seeing a lot of innovatio…

AI assessment note: “In the respiratory category, I know there's a lot of medical, local medical devices”

Q uh, for a population of 1.5 billion, we only have 1.5 billion doctors. Though India has produced almost Uh, the start is between three million to five million doctors, MBBS, but majority of them in the last 50 years have left India for better opportunities in US, UK, Australia, and now even Middle East. So, so how have you seen the change in healthcare in India since you started Portia?

A I started Podia in the year, uh, after I exited from, uh, Tutor Vista and I was looking at what should be the next, um, uh, a new industry or where, where do I see disruption to be brought about? And that led to the start of Podia in 2013. Now, before that, I've always been a consumer of healthcare and I obviously have been, uh, and also it is an area of, uh, great passion for me. Um, I've always read and tracked what happens in the healthcare industry. Um, in the last, uh, 13 years, 14 years, I've seen a lot of transformation in the healthcare space. Um, specifically, even in fact, in 2013, even when I decided to get into the space, I saw that there was a lot of investments that were happening in the facility-based care. And over the last, uh, little more than a decade, that has continued. There's been a lot of new, very good hospitals, the quality of infrastructure in the hospitals, The quality of care in the hospitals, the kind of technology that's being used, global technology, whatever is the latest in cutting edge, um, is there in India? It's somewhere or the other. And people from all over the globe come to India to get a lot of their surgeries and specialized procedures done. So India has become a destination for high quality healthcare at the top end. And, um, at, at, Two interesting things is that you can get the healthcare by paying for it, and you can get it within …

AI assessment note: “In the last, uh, 13 years, 14 years, I've seen a lot of transformation”

Q What are the opportunities right now for entrepreneurs to, to build a long lasting company in healthcare in India? As you have seen, right? Technology is not the answer to everything.

A A technology based, so a product, a technology based offering, and then I should, I started to say product, but I had moved away from there. It need not be a product. It can be a service. It should be something which is very meaningful and something that people really want to take. It makes a difference in their lives and they're willing to pay for it. These are the things that for any business that is what is required. And that's the same thing for healthcare. There are still lots and lots of opportunities to create such kind of solutions in India. The, the, the challenge is that if we look, if we think of it as something which is a quick and dirty, let me throw something together and this is going to take off. It's not, it's, that's not the approach that you can take. If you're patient and you pick a problem, there are a lot of places that you can go with that. For instance, you look at, uh, the cancer care, okay. Cancer care is such a huge, Uh, problem. I mean, huge dimension. There are multiple dimensions to cancer. Okay. Starting from a diagnosis, uh, and diagnosis, not just once, uh, some symptoms are there, but early diagnosis, finding the risk prevention, uh, by knowing where the risks are, all of that can be man. There's a lot of technology that can be used in this, and that technology can be taken to the right people at the right time so that people are prevented from…

AI assessment note: “For instance, you look at, uh, the cancer care, okay.”

Q And what will it take for India to build that kind of research here?

A I think, um, probably it's a nice time for that to happen because some very, very large pharma companies have come up in the domestic market. They have done exceedingly well. They've grown very rapidly. Uh, so they find that, uh, it's worth their while to invest in R and D. Of course, companies like CIPLA have always been very science driven, their own R and D. They're not copying from elsewhere. They've done their own products they've created. Maybe they are, uh, branded generics, but still they, There's a lot of R&D that they do of their own and come up with new products as well. So there is a mix and I, I see that the ability to invest in R&D is now coming up. And the other thing which is improved, I think, is the quality of manufacturing to make sure that they are FDA standards, because a lot of these are manufacturing products for the global industry, global market. So they have to Be of that standards, and then they get the US FDA coming and doing their, uh, audits, etc. They need to be up to the standards. So I'm seeing improvements in that.

AI assessment note: “they find that, uh, it's worth their while to invest in R and D”

Q And, uh, How, how is the pricing model change at Portia? Uh, can, can you share that journey as well?

A So, uh, we've always, uh, from day one, uh, said that the pricing has to be, uh, affordable. The pricing has to be in line with, uh, what, uh, they may have got if they had gone to hospital or otherwise. So, uh, pricing has always been middle of the road. It's not a, we don't do premium pricing that only a few people can afford, and that's the reason why we have a fairly large customer base across the country. However, we've also ensured that from day one, uh, we make, um, unit, unit margins are maintained, and we never lose money for anything that we do. So that is something which has also always been our, uh, objective. So the models that we have created, uh, are such that gross margins are always, uh, uh, solid. Um, pricing is good for the patient and we need to work backwards to see how, as a, how do we get the right kind of, um, supply mix and utilization and technology such that we are able to meet our objectives to do this.

AI assessment note: “we've always, uh, from day one, uh, said that the pricing has to be, uh, affordable”