There are 15 million people in India who are blind, and 80% of these cases are preventable if screened early. When K Chandrasekhar learnt about this data during his casual interaction with a senior ophthalmologist, he came up with an idea of Forus Health with a goal to prevent avoidable blindness, and to make eye screening affordable and accessible to all.

Founded in 2010, Bengaluru-based Forus Health has done 1,300 installations of its different products in 25 countries.

“The idea was not to make a product, but to eradicate preventable blindness. When we thought of coming up with a product, we had certain criteria in mind, like it should be affordable and portable, at the same time, the quality of images taken should be good enough to see whether there are any problems or not,” said Forus Health CEO and Founder Chandrasekhar. 

In 2013, it received $8 million funding from Asian Health Fund, IDG Ventures and Accel Partners. Forus’ 3nethra is a non-mydriatic ophthalmic imaging device. “It doesn’t need dilation, it allows anterior and posterior segment imaging, and can be operated by a trained technician. In 2011, we came up with the Classic, followed by the Royal in 2013, the Flora in 2015, and the Neo in 2016,” he said.

New products
In a couple of months, the company will be launching two products — Kiddo and Specto. “The Kiddo is a binocular hand-held refractometer imaging device. It helps detect refractive errors in children, thereby aiding in diagnosing eye problems at an early stage. It is telemedicine-enabled and fully-automated,” he said.

“The Specto is the wireless, and wearable digital phoropter. It is designed keeping portability in mind. It uses next-gen liquid lenses for fast lens response, and controlled by our custom-made Android app. It is designed to fit all patients,” he explained.

It has applied for close to 16 patents, and has already received four patents.
“Not just in developing countries, there is a need for such products in the developed countries too. In March this year, we started our US operations, we are also looking at the European and Asian markets,” he said. The US is the largest medical devices market in the world and has approximately 35,000 practising ophthalmologists, resulting in massive potential of doing business.

“So far, we have touched the lives of two million people, and we have an ambitious target of touching 20 million in three to four years. We want to come up with more products, and work out more viable ways to reach the people. For the past four years, we have been consistently growing, and in the next two years, our target is to grow at 70-80%. We will be closer to break even this fiscal,” he said.

Source: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/588295/forus-health-puts-focus-rampd.html