In 2005, K Chandrasekhar, Director of Strategy at Philips then was completely motivated by an inspirational talk delivered by India’s famous Ophthalmologist Dr. Aravind Srinivasan who talked about how increasing blindness in India is majorly because of limited access to eye care facilities in the country. Today Chandrasekhar is founder and CEO of
Forus Health started with providing ophthalmologists with digital imaging device that was both completely designed by them and manufactured in India. Their first product is called 3Nethra that can pre-screen five ophthalmic ailments that collectively contribute to nearly 90% of blindness in India. Even though it was initially designed keeping India in mind but thanks to the low-cost and high quality of the medical device it is taking on global giants as well. So far Forus has sold a total of 1350 3Nethra devices in over 25 countries all over the world including the US, Africa, Malaysia and therefore touching a total of 2 million lives already.
Knowing the fact that out of a total of 40 million people who are blind globally, 15 million live in India made Forus all the more invested in the cause specially considering the high incidence of blindness in India is mostly due to limited access to eye care facilities, high cost of treatment/surgery and lack of awareness. And that has become the objective of Forus Health to bring down the cost of diagnosis and raise awareness.
Forus started with one product idea has gone on to develop five products in the market newest one being the 3Methra Neo, a new medical device which will be able to prevent Retinopathy of prematurity (ROP), a disease of the eye affecting prematurely-born babies that in some cases may lead to blindness in serious cases. ROP has been on a rise in India as one out of three babies born develops the disease which made Forus develop a device for ROP that costs one fourth of the existing product out of US in keeping with their aim to build affordable health devices.
Well, it took one inspirational talk and whole lot of will for Chandrasekhar to get on a mission to deliver effective, affordable and inclusive healthcare to people all over the world.
Image Credit