MedRecordz which has developed an integrated electronic platform on web and mobile is now looking to raise Rs. 4 crore from venture capitalists in two tranches. The two-year old start-up company has invested Rs. 1.50 crore since inception, of which Rs. 1 crore was from the founders and Rs. 50 lakh by an external investor.
 
The company’s products are MedRecordz for consumers to manage their medical records, LabRecordz, an application for diagnostic centres to deliver lab reports used by over 85 facilities in Hyderabad. It has created over 1,25,000 identifiable health profiles, storing nearly 1 million reports. DrRecordz is a practice management application currently used by over 100 doctors. OptiRecordz is a patient record management for opticians, Venkat Suravarapu, founder-managing director, MedRecordz told Pharmabiz in an email.

The focus so far has been on product development and we have 10,000 registered users despite limited marketing. Our effort is to ramp up operations once we raise additional capital, he added.

“In advanced countries like the US, healthcare services integrate doctors, diagnostics, pharmacies and social security numbers, making it easy to track records. India does not have any such organized systems. This is where MedRecordz which is one of the first off the block, that is expected to fare well. Our current focus is on the Indian market for at least two years. We do expect to target international markets in the future and tap into the medical tourism sector,” he said.

Presently, MedRecord is operating in a market valued at Rs. 3,000 crore. The competition includes Practo and Lybrate offering doctor practice management solutions, besides eKincare, enabling consumers store lab reports and 1 mg, an online pharmacy player.

“Our differentiating factor is that we are addressing the entire interconnected retail healthcare value chain. We operate with a single mission to automate every element of the value chain, adding sustainable value to consumers and healthcare providers alike, with minimum human intervention,” said Suravarapu.

In contrast, MedRecordz’s integrated platform connects the doctor and the diagnostic centre, enabling automatic transfer of lab test prescriptions from the doctor to the lab, and then delivery of lab reports automatically from the lab to the patient and/or the doctor.

India accounts for 45,000 diagnostic centres, over 5,00,000 doctors and 8,00,000 pharmacies. Around one million undergo diagnostic tests a day generating around Rs. 1,80,000 crore annually. The pharma market too is valued at 1.35 lakh crore.

The visible trends are the internet penetration, poor hospital-patient ratio, increasing waiting time at healthcare providers and growing commuting hassles which increasing need a digital mechanisms to book appointments, view reports and order medicines online.

“The key challenge is the expansive nature of the concept which requires extensive education to both consumer and healthcare providers of the solutions. These require extensive and sustained investment in time and financial resources,” said Suravarapu.