Mugdha Pradhan, 43, is not a doctor and has no medical training of any sort.
Pradhan identifies herself as a nutritionist and is the founder of a health and wellness startup iThrive – Healing and Beyond (previously known as ThriveFNC).
Pradhan’s resume hinges on the words “functional medicine” and she was her own index case study that allowed investors to buy into her vision.
The vision? A one-stop shop’ for anything to do with health and in Pradhan’s own words, “My life is now dedicated to making diseases disappear from this planet”.
It would perhaps be wise to reference Elizabeth Holmes and Theranos here. An aggressive startup founder with a sales pitch that sold Silicon Valley a similar “vision” – a medical revolution based on a single drop of blood.
Holmes will be sentenced shortly after she was convicted for fraud, with her claims to investors being proven fake.
It certainly muddies the water for Pradhan and her belief in “functional medicine”. And the claims she is making.
Taking on the issue head on, Pradhan says, “If it was truly an unethical business practice, then I strongly condemn it,” with reference to Theranos. “However, there’s no regulation around these devices and shortcut testing mechanisms. I know of companies in India too that claim to perform such tests and detailed reports based on five minute scans. How do they work is anyone’s guess. I am not for such shortcut methods.”
Pradhan remains quietly confident and the fact that she has raised $100k in a seed round in March 2019 and $350k in a pre-series A in August 2020, suggest her investors are buying the “functional medicine” cure.
As are customer, with turnover for iThrive at Rs31 lakh in 2020-21 and Rs70 lakh (till date) in 2021-22.
Because this deals with lifestyle and medicine, two highly flammable substances in terms of cause and effect versus claim, Pradhan start at the end. The bottom line.
If she is not a doctor how can she prescribe anything to anyone?
Pradhan starts with supplements and all other solutions offered by iThrive. “They do not create side-effects. Supplements are just nutrients that one is not getting from food. They do not adversely affect anyone. If a customer suffers an injury or faces any other problem or acute condition while undergoing the course, we ask them to consult their physician. We only work on chronic diseases. In some cases, we may partner with the customer’s doctor for a particular time period.”
“When a customer joins iThrive, they sign up on the clauses which clearly state that iThrive is going to partner with them only for nutrition, food and lifestyle changes. Customers are made aware and made to agree that if they have any acute condition, then they need to consult their physician. We also have a disclaimer saying that customers will see results only if they adhere to our recommendations,” says Pradhan.
Recalling an incident, Pradhan said, “There was one person who came onboard and then after one week he didn’t want to make any changes. He wanted us to give him the diet that he wants to do. But we don’t do that. So we gave him a refund, but he still left us a nasty Google review.”
The Institute for Functional Medicine defines functional medicine as “a systems biology–based approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the root cause of disease.” Explaining this Pradhan says, “Usually a blood test report mentions the reference ranges of various parameters. These reference ranges are average of lab data of sick patients from previous decades. So, it may not truly represent the range of healthy people which is why some of us feel sick even if the reports are normal. In functional medicine, we consider ‘optimal ranges’ which are based on latest research and updated every few years. These ranges are derived from the Functional Medicine University and the Institute of Functional Medicine.”
“iThrive is affiliated to US-based Institute of Functional Medicine (IFM). As per Indian laws, which govern iThrive, nutritionists cannot prescribe medicine or change medications. That is why iThrive partners with the customer’s family doctors in some cases where required. IFM certified doctors, however, can use IFM guidelines for diagnosis, as the lab reports are just act as guideline. Which is why diagnosis of doctors vary even if it is based on same lab report,” stated Pradhan.
“Reference ranges in lab reports are regularly updated based on global studies. For example, American Heart Association has revised or updated the guidelines for normal cholesterol levels from above 220 to 150. These ranges are not an average of lab data, but based on disease-specific research findings. In India, it is expected that medical practitioners should follow guidelines of medical council which is the regulatory authority,” says Dr Avinash Bhondwe, a top medical analyst.
Pradhan, four years ago she struggled with her own personal health issues, but learning the nuances of “functional medicine” transformed her health.
Her startup focuses on reversing chronic health conditions and lifestyle diseases through functional nutrition using root-cause analysis. It is backed by a team of highly qualified functional nutritionists that aim to help people reverse a multitude of health dysfunctions through “science-backed functional nutrition coaching and real-time response”.
Pradhan spent her early days in Bengaluru. In 2001, after her graduation, she worked as a visiting faculty for two years at a college in Mumbai. She married, and moved to Bengaluru again in 2004.
She pursued a career in corporate HR and joined Flipkart’s team. Then, due to personal problems, she went through a bout of clinical depression.
Says Pradhan, “By 2016, I weighed 97kg and always looked sick. I had no energy and was not happy with my life. I realised something was very wrong and I should go back to nutrition. In early 2017, I did not have any entrepreneurial background or experience. Finances were becoming an issue and the only answer I knew was to fix my health first.”
“While researching, I discovered ‘Functional Medicine’. I borrowed money from my friends to survive. I did my blood tests and learnt to interpret the report. I realised that I had many underlying issues like a lot of deficiencies. Whatever symptoms your body shows, like excess weight, there is an internal reason. So, I started fixing things for myself and by July 2017 I had lost 37kg. It was such a visible difference, that everyone said whatever you did for yourself do for us too. That’s where I got my first client who was one of my friends, whom I charged ₹2,000 for a month.”
As a solopreneur, Pradhan started thinking about helping more people. She says, “In August 2018, I helped a woman in a wheelchair. Her uncle, Rajesh Ranavat contacted me in December 2018. I was not aware that he was the executive director at Fung Strategic Investments. I was leading a ‘nomad life’ and he asked me what I wanted to do and I told him that I have a vision of healing a million people. That’s when he introduced himself as an investor.”
iThrive was formally registered on June 25, 2019. Pradhan recalls, “We started hiring people and Avinash Deshmukh, who looks after operations, was one of the key persons to join us. Initially we got weight loss, diabetes cases but later, we started getting more complicated cases. People trusted us as we had a science-based approach to looking at any disease and we use a specific strategy to deal with it. By February 2020, we grew to about a six-member team. In March 2020, the Covid-19 outbreak started and since lockdown was we took a pause.”
“Since people were not spending in the first few months, it became difficult for us to survive the lockdown. We had made some early entrepreneurial mistakes like spending on advertisements, outsourcing digital marketing. In July we had no money left. Funding was coming in two tranches and we had not met our revenue goals. I was worried whether I would be able to pay the salaries of our employees. I had given two options to my team. Close the company or stay and share whatever profit we make. Since the team was aligned with my vision of creating a healthier, happier and lifestyle-disease free community, they stayed back. August 2020 onward our trajectory turned positive in terms of signups and referrals.”
Pradhan believes that once someone’s physical health is taken care of, their mind opens up to do good things. She launched a three-month programme ‘iThrive Alive’ as a premium payment model. It is a preventive healthcare programme.
While scaling, Pradhan faced the problem of recruiting and training nutritionists herself. To solve this problem, she started the ‘iThrive Academy’ in January 2021. She says, “We are actually teaching functional medicine to doctors, nutritionists, homeopaths, physiotherapists, nurses and others.
Then, there are the supplements. ‘iThrive Essential Supplements’ launched in November 2021. “Due to supply chain disruptions during lockdowns and unforeseen circumstances otherwise, clients were facing problems while purchasing supplements. If somebody is with us for three months, we want to make sure that their nutrition is fixed, else they are not going to see results,” said Pradhan.
Rajesh Ranavat commented that iThrive has gained significant traction in the last 12 months and is now well positioned for its next phase of growth with the launch of the online iThrive Academy and the supplements’ vertical
Neelesh Bhatnagar added, “In the last two years iThrive has uniquely become a category creator in the functional nutrition space in India, and is rapidly growing into becoming India’s leading Functional Medicine ecosystem with consulting services, online academy and supplements vertical. The brand is full of life and opportunities.”
iThrive received its second funding of $350K in August 2020. “It was like a bridge round – pre-series A. Our first investor Ranawat brought in the second round of HNI investors too. We will be looking at an institutional Series A round late this year or early first Q of 2023. Now we are working on a tech app for Alive and we will soon be launching a sports nutrition programme, iThrive Juniors for children. We want to be the said Pradhan.
“We have partnered with some labs globally. With a special research and development setup, we are doing a lot of intensive testing. We have also got ethical approval to run clinical trials, because we have a lot of patients’ clinical information,” she claimed.
Credit: Source link
