India's preventive healthcare market projected to touch $197 bn by 2025

India’s preventive healthcare sector – fitness, wellness, foods and supplements, early diagnostics and health tracking – is projected to reach $197 bn by 2025, growing at a CAGR of 22 per cent, said a recent report.

Consulting firm Redseer Strategy Consultants in collaboration with Chiratae Ventures and Amazon Web Services (AWS) has come out with a report on ‘State of Preventive Health in India’.

“India is looking to effectively deliver quality healthcare to a billion people through rapidly evolving technology that can provide affordable, accessible and personalised healthcare. We have invested over $150mn in healthcare companies in India, such as Cure.fit, Redcliffe, HealthifyMe, Smiles.ai, HealthPlix, Onco, and others, who are revolutionizing care delivery in nutrition and wellness, cancer, genomics, and other critical areas,” said Sudhir Sethi, founder, chairman, Chiratae Ventures.

India has traditionally focused on curative care as opposed to preventive care.

However, since the COVID-19 pandemic, preventive care has increased in importance across India. A survey conducted with over 1,000 individuals reveals that at least 40 per cent of the respondents were highly inclined towards preventive health.

Another survey conducted with a group of 300 Health-Conscious Individuals (HCIs) reveals that they actively track different aspects of their health such as lifestyle, physical wellness, and more, to maintain and prolong wellness. These HCIs are familiar with health monitoring devices and apps and use them regularly to monitor their health. Further, the study revealed that these HCIs spend on an average between Rs 4,000 and Rs 10,000 on various preventive healthcare practices annually and are also willing to pay up to 50 per cent more in the future.

Ranjith Menon, MD, Chiratae Ventures told Business Standard: “About $93 bn is spent on preventive health across products and services in India. The biggest healthcare emergency of our time has only further highlighted the importance of investing in well-being at both the personal and system level. Spending on preventive health is expected to go up to $200 bn over the next few years.”

He added that the average spend on health in India is about Rs 2500 per annum. This is spent largely in the curative domain, procedures, medicines etc.  "In our study, it is clear that a health-conscious individual spends between Rs 4000 to Rs 10,000 on preventive health. This spend is on fitness, regular diagnostics for chronic care, supplements, etc," he said.

More than 40 preventive healthcare technology startups have raised approximately $1 bn in funding over the last three years.

Kumara Raghavan, head – AWS Startups India, Amazon Internet Services Private Limited said they help the startups building their businesses on the AWS Cloud to lay strong tech foundations through various tools and applications. “The startups we work with have big ambitions to make positive change that could change lives. With 200 products and services, AWS offers the broadest and deepest set of capabilities of any cloud provider, ranging from basic compute and storage through to advanced database and architecture options, through to pre-built solutions,” he added.

Redseer’s report also said that not only startups, but diversified corporates and healthcare businesses, are entering the preventive health space by partnering with startups or building their own programs and digital platforms. The Indian consumer is expected to benefit from the shift from curative to preventive, with the delivery of better health outcomes and lower healthcare costs.