Just ten to 20 seconds and just Rs 35 — that's all EzeCheck takes to check five blood parameters namely, hemoglobin (an oxygen-transferring protein in your blood), oxygen saturation (percentage of hemoglobin bound to molecular oxygen), bilirubin (a pigment that is made during the normal breakdown of red blood cells), creatinine (waste product of creatine, this is used by our muscles to make energy), and blood glucose levels. Five very important parameters, wouldn't you say? No injections and no jittery nerves while waiting for hours together for the report to come. So how does the device work? You just place your ring finger on it. "Very early on when we were working on the device, we understood that even unskilled manpower should be able to use our innovation. That's why we kept it simple," explains Partha Pratim Das, Founder and CEO, EzeRx Health Tech who incorporated the start-up in 2018. But why did he decide to work on this particular problem statement?
Born in Egra, a city in the Purba Medinipur district of West Bengal, Partha has to take tuition right from class XI to support his education and do what he can for his parents who were heart patients. His mother also has anaemia and in this way, it became Partha's mission to work for the cause. So even after working with ITC, Bengaluru as an IT Consultant and Grant Thornton, Singapore, he came back to his country to give his all to his passion. Healthcare analytics along with IoT and AI has been his forte always, so he funneled his energy into his passion. "Our country is an anaemic one and something needs to be done about it because it leads to a whole set of other problems like premature heart diseases," he explains with concern. While the device gives the exact values of haemoglobin and oxygen saturation, the band range of the other parameters are given.
The team is working on getting the exact values of the other parameters as well and starting to sell the device in a B2B model, meaning directly to hospitals and PHCs (public healthcare centres), hospitals and so on. The beta version was launched this April and after two months' time, their biggest backers IndianOil Corporation will help launch it on a larger scale. They are incubated at KIIT-TBI and have had a lot of help from Startup Odisha too. KIMS, Bhubaneswar is where they have been carrying out their clinical trials for about seven to eight months. "We have reached the production stage from MVP, but now, we have to ramp up to the manufacturing stage and need funding," says the 31-year-old.
"From the two and a half years' time that we have poured into this device, some of the biggest lessons I have learnt as an entrepreneur is product development, especially when it comes to healthcare. Then there are the multitude of certifications one needs to get," says the youngster who pursued his MBA in IT from Symbiosis Institute of Management Studies. Non-contact, non-invasive and IoT-enabled portable diagnostic devices is certainly their strength because the next device they are working on is on the same lines but for neonatal care. It will measure their potassium, bilirubin and other parameters and right now, it is at an accuracy level of 97%. Clearly, the team is not going all out to do what it can for the field of healthcare
For more on them check out ezerx.in
