THB generates insights from clinical data sets for health care providers

THB generates insights and value from clinical data sets for health care providers, writes Nirmalya Behera

A primary health care chain’s business was recording a flat growth in patient compliance and stickiness until it used the services of THB, a clinical research and data analytics start-up.

“We have been working with them for over a year and seen phenomenal outcomes towards clinical research, patient outcomes, and real-world clinical evidence. THB has helped improve patient compliance by more than 10 per cent and enabled us to share insights with other stakeholders,” says the owner of a primary health care chain. The Gurugram-based startup — founded in September 2015 by Akansh Khurana, Rajesh Pachar, Rohit Kumar and Gagandeep Singh — generates insights and value from clinical data sets that help health care providers to give personalised services to patients.

Recently, THB has raised $2.1 million from early-stage venture capital firm Blume Ventures and health care-focused VC firm Health-quad. Fireside Ventures, Apoorva Patni, and Arpan Sheth, a partner at Bain & Company, also invested.

“Health care-tech has become one of our key focus areas, given the many inefficiencies and opportunities for growth. Modicare and IHIP further support this ecosystem, and health care + data/insights make a powerful combination. We are excited by the strong THB team, growing client base, and their novel big data platform and intellectual property. THB is well-positioned to become a leader in this space,” said Sanjay Nath, managing partner at Blume Ventures and lead in THB investment.

Product concept

The start-up has developed a series of clinical intelligence modules to help drive clinical value and insights for health care providers. It helps providers differentiate themselves in the market and increase profitable revenues by driving real-world evidence, clinical research, and smarter patient care. “Until we created this automated platform, most of our customers leveraged manual intensive and inefficient initiatives for insight generation,” says Khurana.

Its proprietary ETL technology helps real-time standardisation, de-identification, and de-duplication of data.

Opportunities
 

The company sees opportunities in the Indian clinical intelligence market, which is estimated at over $1 billion but is nascent today. “Now that the tech adoption is evolving in the Indian  health care ecosystem, the need to drive clinical intelligence and smarter outcome-led care are starting to evolve,” the co-founder asserts.

Its customer base includes the entire health care ecosystem — hospitals, laboratories, clinic chains, insurance firms, public health organisations, clinical research foundations, and others.

The company works with around 50 clients in 15 states and plans to expand to 500 clients by 2019 in 20 states. The business-to-business (B2B) company partners with its customers for one or more modules of its clinical intelligence platform, depending on the scale and type of provider.

Revenue model
 

It primarily works on an output-linked fee model based on the number of patients the customers have cared using the platform. “We make money if our clients do, and maintain a high return on investment lens on all the work we do,” says the co-founder.

Since, it is a platform and product-led approach, a lot of upfront investment of the company goes in technology, analytics and clinical teams. THB is 18 months away from break-even.

Challenges
 

Most stakeholders in the segment are sceptical of the “objective” value that analytics and data intelligence could create. “And, we continue to focus on ensuring our clients see return on investment. That is the only way we can drive win-win partnership for long-term,” Khurana hopes.
 

Earlier, THB had raised two undisclosed rounds of funding in October 2015 and 2016.

On using the fresh funding, he says, “We are continuing to invest in technical teams — engineering, data science and clinical teams. We have exciting product road map and intelligence modules. We are also investing to build a pan-India presence.” 

FACT BOX 

Inception: 2015
 

Area of business:  Insights for health care providers
 

Funding: $2.1 million from Blume Ventures, Healthquad and others. Earlier, it had raised funds in 2015 and 2016
 

Customer base:  Health care ecosystem, including hospitals and insurance firms

EXPERT TAKE

Mukul Bagga- Head of Asia Pacific for Medicom Healthcare

It’s a tightrope walk

I have been associated with THB for over two years and witnessed its start-up journey as it dived headlong into the ocean of data analytics. What impressed me about Akaansh and his team is their open mindset as they have made necessary adjustments in their value proposition to meet customer needs. They are able to create a technologically elegant, ethical and win-win model with data providers and customers. This is a tightrope walk and they have done it well. 

Data analytics/clinical insights are a broad domain and it is easy to get distracted with short-term opportunities. This is virtually a blue ocean, where THB is the pioneer in creating meaningful clinical insights. The concept selling/creating value for their customers is tough and focusing on selected therapeutic areas that are large enough to be commercially viable will be critical to accelerate revenues.