Once A College Dropout, Now The CEO Of India's Leading Diagnostics Firm, Healthians, Meet Health-Tech Veteran, Deepak Sahni

Deepak Sahni is the most recognisable names in the at-home diagnostics sector in India, and his company Healthians is a household name in more than 250+ cities in the country. Some even say that Deepak is the pioneer of preventive healthcare, as Healthians was among the very first to introduce and promote health screening tests to the masses in India.

From the day Healthians started, the company always focused on the preventive and chronic segments of diagnostics. Today Healthians caters to a large acute tests segment and is driven by the mission to bring about a meaningful change in the health of Indians by helping them to act in a preventive manner and alter their lifestyle by timely screening.

We sat down with Deepak Sahni to learn more about his entrepreneurial journey, and below is what he had to share about his inspiring journey:

Tell us a little bit about your origins. How does your story start?
I am a Delhite through and through. I come from a very regular, middle-class household, and of course, any parent's thinking at that time was to send their kid to a good school. And that's how I did my schooling at St. Margaret School, New Delhi.

My brush with entrepreneurship started when I was doing my Bachelor's degree in computer application from Manipal University, Sikkim. Certain circumstances came into my life at the time, forcing me to become financially independent at the age of 19. And as they say, necessity is the mother of invention. So I started a computer assembling business using some of the skills I had learnt in my undergraduate degree.

I then went on to complete my Bachelor's degree and later my Master's degree in the same field as well, but the entrepreneurship bug had bitten me for good.

I started a digital marketing agency aimed at healthcare. SWT, my full-service healthcare digital services firm, went on to become one of the largest such agencies in India.

What was your experience in healthcare like?
My experience in the healthcare industry really shaped me. By god's grace, my business did well, and I was able to hit several milestones. I represented India in the Medical Tourism Congress in the US for three consecutive years. I also won the 'Futuristic Face of Healthcare' award in 2009.

But honestly, the accolades I received have little significance when compared to the people I met through my work. In a span of seven years, I got to interact with absolutely incredible people from 120 renowned hospitals across the world. These people literally dedicated their lives to making the world a healthier place, which really inspired me. That's when I realised that I wanted to make a difference in a more direct manner in the healthcare space because that has an apparent impact on someone's life.

By 2015, I had spent enough time in the healthcare industry to understand that there was a gap when it came to diagnostics, and the rest is history!

In particular, Healthians is focused on the preventive healthcare space. When I started, diagnostics was mostly limited to people who were already ill. However, due to my experience with global hospitals and customers, I understood that the trend in developed markets was towards preventive health tests. Today, we are witnessing a vindication of that insight I had back then with the sheer growth we're witnessing in preventive healthcare.

How did your background in digital marketing help while launching Healthians?
Right from the beginning, I envisioned Healthians to be an asset-light business that would primarily be mobile first. My time in the digital marketing business helped me understand the trends shaping the world – it was evident to me that audience eyeballs were going completely digital.

At the same time, I also understood that I needed to be crystal clear with my positioning and differentiation. I was very clear about what Healthians' USP was – we were a company providing diagnostic services to the customer from the comfort of their homes in a completely user-friendly manner, something that was unimaginable at the time.

Healthians is one of the very few health-tech firms in India which is on track to achieving profitability. How is the business doing?

Today, Healthians is present in more than 250 cities. We have 12 centralised labs that ensure full control of quality. This year, we are on track to hit a revenue run rate of Rs 500 crores. Currently, the company has a positive contribution margin of Rs 167 crore with a negative EBITDA of Rs.90 crore.

There are encouraging signs coming in from Tier 2 markets in particular. Healthians has observed a 150% and 285% Y-O-Y growth rate in Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities, respectively, in the last 2 years.

Technology is at the heart of Healthians. What kind of innovations have you come up with recently?
Our strength is innovation and diversification. We were among the very first to introduce smart reporting - an AI-based self-explanatory health diagnostics report that outlines information in an intuitive way to help people better understand their health and lifestyle. The report consists of Health analysis, health advisory and recommendations based on test results and historical testing data.

Earlier this year, in June 2022, we launched India's first-ever live reporting feature, under which users can get updates about their reports in just 4 hours after sample collection. Some ages ago, companies needed 1 to 3 days to deliver groceries to home – someone changed it to 10 mins. It used to take 2-3 hours for pizza delivery – someone changed it to 30 mins, but unfortunately, it still takes 18-24 hours and sometimes even more to get a test report on which someone's treatment or diagnosis may be dependent and we at Healthians aimed to change that. With this launch, Healthians became the first company in the diagnostic sector to offer such a feature to its users.

In May 2022, we also started 'Health on Wheels' with a vision of 'Har Jan Swasth' making it easier for millions of Indians to get tested and stay healthy. Presently, the 'Health on Wheels' Van is available in Delhi NCR and Mumbai. But, very soon, the service will also be operational in several other cities in India.

In the year 2022, Healthians also became the first diagnostic brand to ever advertise on IPL through an ad campaign that consists of a series of Ad Films based on the widespread reach and convenience of booking a health test with Healthians, encapsulated by the line – 'Aap Jahan Test Wahan'.