Listen to this article1mg is a service that gives you knowledge about the medicines you and your loved ones are prescribed, their side effects and generic substitutes. Few days ago we have learned that 1mg raised $16 million from their Lead investor Maverick Capital. Below is our interview with Prashant Tandon, Co-founder of 1mg:
Q: How would you describe 1mg in your own words?
A: 1mg is the trusted health partner for all Indians and its mission is to make healthcare accessible, understandable and affordable for a billion Indians.
1mg has over 5 M+ organic app downloads and 25 M monthly page views coming from 2M unique consumers who use its services every month, making it the #1 mobile health platform. The company provides innovative healthcare content and tools and also operates India’s largest e-pharmacy and e-diagnostic network spread over many of India’s largest cities.
It has received acclaim from top media companies as well as received the m-billionth award for being the best app in m-health in South Asia. The company is run by an experienced team with technologists, doctors, pharmacists, MBAs with deep domain experience in healthcare, technology and management. The team also operates a platform using the latest technology infrastructure and understands consumer internet in depth. It has infrastructure that can work at scale, as would be critical for sector like health care.
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Q: Could you explain the function and advantages of 1mg?
A: 1mg has the following verticals:
– Drug Database of over 80K products with information on substitutes, uses, side effects etc.
– 1mg Pharmacy Network of Pharmacies for supply of Allopathic medicines
– 1mg AYUSH Network of AYUSH pharmacies for supply of Non Allopathic medicines
– 1mg Labs Network of NABL Accredited labs
– 1mg Doctor Discovery platform for patients including online consultation
– 1mg is an initiative taken in the spirit of public service with a vision to empower Indian consumers and caregivers to select the most appropriate healthcare service at the best possible price.
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Q: Which customers benefit from your services and how?
A: India has one of the highest populations of chronic patients in the world and yet access to quality and affordable healthcare is limited. Couple that with a generally poor understanding of one’s disease condition and lack of information, patients often are not able to make the best and most cost effective healthcare decisions for themselves.
1mg’s core mission is to help consumers understand their healthcare choices better. Our app allows customers to access knowledge about substitutes that can often save 80-90% on healthcare bills. Additionally our e-pharmacy platform enables users to transact and purchase these medicines and have them home delivered. Our more recently launched e-diagnostics service aims to bring a similar transparency to the lab tests market, providing a complete solution for consumers most common healthcare needs.
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Q: You’ve recently announced a $16 million series B funding round; what are your plans?
A: The investment will support 1mg in expanding its innovative digital health offerings, accelerating the nationwide coverage of its e-pharmacy and e-diagnostic services, launching innovative digital health products such as ‘Smart Prescriptions’ and a personalized ‘My Health Feed’; and engaging more deeply with public and private healthcare programs.
Q: How would you convince the reader to start using 1mg?
A: We believe the way healthcare has been addressed till date has many inherent issues – the real change will come when a consumer becomes aware and starts demanding quality healthcare. The consumer needs to understand his/her choices better, have an informed conversation with the doctor and work with the doctors/ hospitals etc to draw out the optimum health plan. So far, consumers have been completely kept in the dark, and have been often misled by multiple agents or intermediaries. A consumer feels helpless when dealing with healthcare, because unlike other areas, he feels that this is something beyond his understanding – this knowledge gap is what we are bridging through technology to provide the right information with convenience to the patient.
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