N.B. Nair
Dr. Biswarup Ghosh completed his doctoral studies in biochemistry at the University of Kalyani, West Bengal, and went to the United States for post-doctoral training. Currently, he is a senior research investigator at the University of Pennsylvania working on gene therapy-based therapeutic interventions to treat retinal diseases.
But somewhere through the course of his scientific pursuits, Dr. Ghosh wanted to spread health awareness and promote recent advances in biomedical science. During COVID-19 pandemic, he joined millions of health professionals in the global fight against the pandemic and started live health awareness campaigns through social media against the infodemic.
“During these campaigns, I came in contact with thousands of ordinary people and learned about the gaps in healthcare, especially in rural areas. Authenticity in diagnosis services is being compromised. Sometimes, people don’t find experienced physicians on time. There are pathological services, but the quality of services is being compromised due to lack of ethics,” Dr. Gosh told Inspirational India on how the idea of a digital healthcare platform originated.
Dr. Ghosh roped in his brother Anup Kumar Ghosh to set up a digital health startup – Neucrad Health Hub India, in his hometown, East Burdwan, West Bengal to facilitate telehealth and affordable pathological services.
“Our slogan is very clear, and we set our goals stepwise. I started my entrepreneurship journey from my birthplace, and we offer affordable pathological services at affordable costs, rejecting commissions to agents. People may identify us differently based on our ethics, mindset, and quality of services. We are planning to extend our services to other places,” he added.
Neucard Health Hub operates through its website and a mobile application. The physicians on roll do not pay any fee or subscription to the platform, and even offer 15-25 percent less fee to the usual fee.
“We introduced free telemedicine services with the support of empathetic physicians. We are approaching physicians to set lower consultation fees for the general public. Actually, telemedicine services will be more popular if physicians set lower consultation fees. Neucrad wants to differentiate itself from the hard commercial entities in the future. Physicians are joining from different parts of India. In the future, Neucrad may have its own hospital with centralized in-house telemedicine services. If we can hire physicians, we can keep the cost for patients affordable,” the scientist explained his future plans.
Besides healthcare, Dr Biswarup Ghosh is also venturing into organic farming. He said new strategies are being introduced on a trial basis at several places in East Burdwan district.
“We are reducing chemical fertilizers and pesticides gradually. Based on our field studies, we reduced 25 percent of chemicals supplemented with our Biokits and found equivalent crop production. The Biokits were formulated by a collaborator startup which helped to enrich the fertility of soil and plant health. This year we will reduce 40 percent of chemical fertilisers in the same field from 25 percent,” said Dr. Ghosh.
Dr. Ghosh claimed, Biokits enriched potato crop is enriched both with colour and nutritional values, as evidenced by research outcome through inductively coupled plasma-optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES) testing.
The startup plans to introduce crop-specific hi-tech technologies on an experimental basis and help farmers to reduce excessive chemicals in agriculture. Neucard is also planning to set up new marketplaces, where farmers can sell their crops as a group and gradually develop a food supply chain for rice, potatoes, and other products.
Dr. Ghosh confided that several expatriates have evinced interest in the projects, both through funding and expertise to move forward to enrich rural healthcare and a healthy food chain.
Image Courtesy: Dr. Biswarup Ghosh