From remote monitoring and early disease detection to tools that help frontline health workers make better decisions, startups are developing solutions to address gaps in healthcare delivery. The bigger challenge, however, lies in integrating these technologies into India’s public health system and making them accessible. 

At TechSparks 2026, Dr Geetha Manjunath, Founder and CEO, Niramai Health Analytix; Debraj Banerjee, Global technology investor and General Partner, Fundamentum Frontier Advisors; and Shekar Sivasubramanian, Head, Wadhwani AI; discussed on healthcare innovation and AI, and why promising innovations often struggle to achieve widespread adoption.

According to the panel, startups face three interconnected challenges: rigorous clinical validation, integration with existing public health infrastructure, and the patience capital required to scale solutions across India’s diverse healthcare ecosystem.

“There are no gaps in the system,” said Shekhar Sivasubramanian, Head of Wadhwani AI, arguing that innovators must learn to design solutions around real-world constraints rather than treat them as obstacles.

Internet connectivity may be inconsistent, data may be incomplete, and solutions may need to work across languages and cultural contexts. These are realities that developers must account for, he said.

“If you cannot solve a problem with these realities, then you shouldn’t be in this business,” he added.

Geetha Manjunath said one of the biggest barriers to adoption is the tendency to prioritise rapid product development over clinical validation.

AI tools can now be built in days using readily available datasets and development platforms. But a model that performs well in a laboratory does not necessarily deliver reliable results when deployed in real-world healthcare settings.

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