A New Approach to Global Health?
Traditionally global health is thought of as an approach taken in western countries like the US to create technologies to aid developing parts of the world. This may seem obvious at first because these western countries have the resources to make this happen. However, the start up JanaCare is flipping this approach and has the ability to transform how we think about approaching global health technologies.
To give a little background on JanaCare they currently are the creators of the Aina Device. This is a low-cost blood glucometer that can capture and analyze glucose readings on a smartphone. This data also helps the company feed their Habits program where they work to develop a healthy lifestyle for Diabetes patients in India using smartphone technology.
When medical technologies are developed in the US, companies usually have many obstacles and fees to get through to run simple tests. The costs and time associated may eventually cause companies to be unsuccessful in endeavors. However, JanaCare was able to test their Aina Device on thousands of patients within a year of startup because it was developed in India. By developing their product in an emerging product they were able to conduct tests at a faster rate, quickly improve their device, and truly tailor their product to their target market. They did this because they found products developed in western countries were not suited well for emerging markets where the conditions are vastly different. This direct approach has given them a quick penetration into the market and allowed them to have an immediate impact.
Where JanaCare is truly changing the game is that they hope to be able to swing their product around and take it to western markets later on. Their decision to test in India gave them many subjects to test on and truly made their product robust for large populations. If it can work under the extreme conditions of the Indian market they believe it can work in markets around the world. Whether this approach will work is yet to be known. They are currently working to expand to Singapore. In the end, they are a leader in this new approach and their success can be a huge validation for future companies in global health.