Five healthcare startups to watch out for in 2018

New Delhi: Healthcare has become India's one of the largest sectors - both in terms of revenue and employment. Healthcare is an industry with the potential to drastically disrupt or improve everyday life.

Healthcare has demonstrated massive growth in the recent few years. Beyond this, the last year has signaled a huge growth in health-tech trends, and startups are getting better at commercial innovations.

Based on general momentum during 2017 and the likelihood of serious advancement during the next year, these are the top five healthcare startups to watch out for in 2018:

Practo

Sequoia Capital-funded Practo provides healthcare solutions for healthcare providers and consumers. Practo Search lets patients to browse through doctor profiles online and book appointments, while Practo Ray, serves as a practice management solution for healthcare providers to manage patient data and digital healthcare records.

The company added specialty specific modules for Physicians, Paediatricians, and Dentists to Practo Ray. Practo is active in 35 Indian cities and in Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, and Malaysia, and acquired Fitho, Genii, Quikwell, and InstaHealth in 2015.

The platform helps people with assessing health issues, finding the right doctor, booking diagnostic tests, obtaining medicines, storing health records or learning new ways to live healthier.

Advancells

Transfiguring the face of medicine, Advancells was established in the year 2013. Delving in the field of stem cell therapies, the company has been futuristically conceptualist to further modern medicine.

Advancells is headquartered in Noida and has representative offices in Bangladesh and Australia. Breaking the stereotype regarding stem cell companies that most often offer arrangements for stem cell banking, this is one of the few organisations in the country that focuses the therapeutic usage of stem cells for a variety of life-threatening and lifestyle diseases.

Advancells also works on writing protocols for partner doctors and hospitals which they can use for treating the patients using regenerative medicine. Advancells is a GMP compliant research and processing center that works on different cell lines from various sources such as Bone Marrow, Adipose Tissue, Dental Pulp, Blood, Cord Tissue etc.

Forus Health

Forus Health is an innovation-driven technology company that was founded by passionate technocrats in 2010. Forus' product 3nethra is an integrated, intelligent, affordable, rugged and portable eye screening device that can screen a patient in less than five minutes for common eye problems.

These devices are integrated with a unique cloud hosted telemedicine application 'Foruscare', offering a complete eye care solution platform.

Healthifyme

HealthifyMe is an application that allows its users to achieve their fitness and weight loss goals from their computers and smartphones.

The application enables its users to track their calories, nutrition, and fitness activities; track their weight and determine if they are healthy; set healthy goals and work toward meeting them; share their data with experts, and get expert advice and suggestions on their lifestyles.

HealthifyMe was developed and launched by a team of doctors, nutritionists, and fitness trainers.

Netmeds

Netmeds is a licensed online pharmacist offering prescription medicines and other health products across India, covering Tier II and III cities and villages. The startup provides low-cost generic drugs as alternatives prescription medicines and delivers orders in three to seven working days. Payments can be made via card or cash, with charges of Rs. 49 apply for cash on delivery orders less than Rs. 1,000.