Wellthy Therapeutics is using digital tools for diabetes-control solutions

Wellthy Therapeutics uses digital tools to provide therapeutic solutions to people with chronic diseases. Mumbai-based Neeraj Vajpayee was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in 2015. One day, while travelling in a local train, he broke down into a pool of sweat. “As soon as I got down at Parel station, I went to a doctor and he told me that my blood sugar level was extremely high, almost 300 mg/dl,” said Vajpayee. Following the doctor’s advice, he joined Wellthy Therapeutics’ 16-week programme for managing Type 2 diabetes.
 
“Wellthy helped make small changes in my lifestyle. It followed my diet for three months and suggested changes. I was surprised that my HBA1C (marker used to measure long-term blood sugar or glucose levels) results dropped from 8.1 to 6.5,” he said.
 
Founded in December 2015, Mumbai-based Wellthy Therapeutics uses digital tools to improve health literacy, facilitate behavioural change, and improve outcomes for patients with chronic diseases. The start-up is currently providing only diabetes-control solutions.
 
The digital therapeutics company has recently raised $2.1 million in seed funding from Ranjan Pai through his family office, Beenext Ventures, GrowX Ventures, Currae Healthcare and other strategic HNIs (high net-worth individuals) like Ashutosh Taparia and  Karan Bhagat.
 
“We are excited to partner with Wellthy as it looks to transform the way health care is delivered, by focusing on solving one of the largest chronic conditions (diabetes) in India. It brings digital, data and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to solve the key problem in metabolic diseases — that of prevention, compliance, and monitoring. Wellthy Therapeutics’ solution brings together existing stakeholders — patients, insurance, the government, the pharma industry and health care providers —  in a win-win partnership to deliver a cost-effective solution to one of the biggest segments in health care,” said Siddharth Dhondhiyal, an independent member of GrowX’s investment committee.
 
Wellthy Therapeutics’ solution leverages the capabilities of stakeholders in the health care ecosystem by using a combination of data, AI and communication technologies to provide a digital therapeutic suite that not only improves outcomes at the patient-level but also at the population-level.
 
“We have an episodic health care system in South Asia that cannot solve for lifelong conditions. Wellthy provides clinically validated & approved digital tools to those suffering from chronic diseases to help self-manage their condition, thereby augmenting traditional health care. We work with insurers, doctors and other health care stakeholders to improve the only thing that really matters - patient health,” said Abhishek Shah, chief executive officer and co-founder of Wellthy Therapeutics.
 
“Our therapeutic services are usually prescribed to a patient either by the doctor or the insurance company of which he/she is a policyholder,” he said. 
 
After downloading Wellthy’s app, a patient undertakes a multi-week journey with an AI health coach, who advises regarding diabetes-control activities in real time. A human coach also helps the patient.

Fact Box: 

• Inception: 2015
• Area of business:  Online health care solutions
• Funding: $2.1 million from Ranjan Pai, Beenext Ventures, GrowX Ventures, Currae Healthcare, and others
• Customer base:  Patients, hospitals and insurance firms

 
The company chooses an outcome metric, which is globally accepted. In diabetes, the globally accepted metric is the HbA1c test and the measurement is delivered through a third party for a fair assessment.
 
“Using our digital therapeutic app, the average HbA1c reduction among people is negative 1.17 per cent, which is significant,” said the CEO.
 
The start-up helps patients through its three-layer intervention. In the 16-week programme, it imparts skills to help customers manage their chronic condition and then helps transform those skills into habits. Thereafter, it trains them to manage the condition for the lifetime.
 
Opportunities
 
Diabetes care is a nearly $10 billion opportunity in India; more than $1 trillion globally. Chronic diseases treatment make up the lion’s share of the health care costs in India (estimates put it at nearly $60 billion). The company sees an immense opportunity in providing digital therapeutic solutions to the chronic diseases because almost all of the care is currently delivered offline.
 
The customer base of the start-up mostly comprises patients. It also works closely with clinics and hospitals, besides health and life insurance companies.
 
“In FY2018-19, we aim to bring 100 clinics/hospital systems, and multiple health and life insurance clients on board,” Shah said.
 
Revenue model
 
“In India, we work with health and life insurers to improve policyholder’s health. We earn revenue as we improve his/her health. We are also recommended by doctors and earn revenue from patients via that model,” he said. Wellthy plans to expand to select markets in Asia by 2019.
 
Challenges
 
The company feels that building a new category takes time, especially in health care. “Working with health care stakeholders, we are slowly but surely overcoming that," said the CEO. "The more we work with our patients, the more it becomes apparent that there is a need for digital therapeutics beyond diabetes.”

Expert Take: Effective and Time-saving, says Ben Mathais

Ben Mathais, Managing Partner, Vertex Ventures

We are seeing an increasing number of healthtech start-ups that use Artificial Intelligence and data to facilitate diagnoses and treatment. This includes companies like Tricog, which focuses on cardiac conditions and HealthifyMe that helps with weight-loss. Apps like MFine help with the doctor-patient interaction for paediatrics and gynaecology, while Wellthy and Vitacloud assist with chronic conditions.
 
App-based solutions help drive the right patient behaviour, such as sticking to a diet or exercise schedule. They also make the doctor more effective since the patient history is available on a tablet. In many cases, a face-to-face patient interaction is unnecessary and can be done via the app, hence saving time for both the doctor and patient.
 
These solutions read data from the devices, such as ECG machines and glucometers. As the data pool expands, the algorithm learns more and gets smarter and can start to identify more unique conditions.