New Delhi: Cancer is the disease with the highest rate of individual health expenditure in India, leading to nearly 80% of affected households facing catastrophic costs. Screening rates remain below 5% for major programmes, and low awareness means most cases are detected late, when treatment is far more expensive and less likely to be curative.
To address this, i4Mentors Foundation brought together experts in public health, nutrition and technology for a webinar in its “Make Healthcare Affordable” series, where panellists called for earlier diagnosis, better nutritional care, and home-grown innovation.
“A lot of this cost is manageable. Much of it comes from wasted time and resources in delayed diagnosis and treatment, and by then the window for early curative treatment is lost. We need to invest in research in India to develop our own drugs, molecules and newer ways of delivering them,” said Dr. Uma Nambiar, CEO, Indian Institute of Science Medical School Foundation .
“Timely nutritional intervention prevents complications and improves recovery. Malnutrition raises complications, emergency visits and hospital costs, so nutrition must go together with physical activity and psychological support,” said Mr. Shivshankar Timmanpyati, President, Association for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition, and Chief Clinical Nutritionist, Tata Memorial Hospital.
“We need to find new cost-effective techniques for early diagnosis. We need to use learning from malnutrition caused by tumour growth to develop detection techniques for initial stages of tumour development. We also need to make early diagnosis accessible through training of PHC staff and GPs” said D r. Rajbir Singh, founder of i4 Mentors Foundation.
Mr. Gaurab Banerjee, CEO, Molsya Pvt Ltd , who represented the health startup sector at the webinar, said, “Precision diagnostics must connect to the whole care pathway. For example, validated blood-based ctDNA testing can help profile advanced non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) when clinically appropriate. Tissue and blood testing together may improve detection’.”
“Regulatory hurdles are a challenge for startups and a barrier to scaling, but the real bottleneck is innovation and funding. Even where good solutions exist, adoption remains a major issue, and local implementation is the biggest challenge in turning pilots into impact,” said Dr Rajbir Singh.
