- Free for patients, front desks and pharmacies; ₹199 a month for doctors; revenue mainly from medicine supply to clinic pharmacies and lab bookings that prescriptions already create.
- At 1,000 doctors, the plan case earns ₹8.57 crore a year and an operating profit of about ₹1.3 crore; the conservative case earns ₹1.37 crore and loses about ₹4.1 crore. Both are shown, with every formula.
- The business turns on two numbers: medicine bought through 1Heath per clinic, and the AI cost per consultation (about ₹3 to ₹4 today).
- In the plan case each doctor repays the ₹20,000 it costs to win them in about 5 months; the business breaks even at about 740 doctors.
- Doctors are never paid for prescribing, and what 1Heath earns never shapes what is suggested to the doctor.
Where the Money Comes From
| Stream | Who pays | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Doctor plan | Doctor | Doctors × ₹168.64 × 12 (₹199 a month including 18% GST) |
| Medicine supply | Margin within supply to clinic pharmacies | Doctors × share of clinics ordering × monthly purchases × 12 × take rate |
| Lab bookings | Laboratory | Consultations × share with a test × share booked through 1Heath × average order × fee |
| Patient, Desk and Pharmacy apps | Free | No charge, ever, for safety features |
Why medicines: Indians bought medicines worth about ₹2.41 lakh crore in 2025[1], and every prescription 1Heath writes is a purchase that already happens. Clinic software alone has stayed small in India; the pharma page explains how medicines and money actually move.
Two Cases at 1,000 Doctors
| Assumption | Conservative | Plan | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinics ordering medicines through 1Heath | 3 in 10 | 6 in 10 | Our assumption; no national figure exists for clinics with their own dispensary, so the pilot measures it |
| Purchases per ordering clinic, a month | ₹40,000 | ₹1,50,000 | Our assumption, to be measured in the pilot; no pharmacy routes all its buying through one platform |
| Take rate | 2.5% | 6% | Distribution margins are thin: about 3% for the carrying-and-forwarding agent and 10% for the wholesaler[2]. 6% needs a generics-heavy mix |
| Consultations with a lab test ordered | 15% | 20% | Our assumption, to be measured in the pilot |
| Tests booked through 1Heath | 10% | 15% | Our assumption; the patient chooses any lab |
| Average lab order and fee | ₹600, 10% | ₹700, 10% | Our assumption; fee from the lab, never shared with the doctor |
| AI drafting cost a consultation | ₹1 | ₹2 | Our estimate is ₹1 to ₹4; to be measured on real consultations |
| Speech cost a consultation | ₹2.09 | ₹2.09 | 2.58 minutes × ₹0.81 a minute, as measured in the build |
Medicine revenue, plan case
- Doctors using 1Heath1,000
- 6 in 10 of their clinics order medicines through 1Heath600 clinics
- Each buys about ₹1.5 lakh of medicines a month, so in a year₹108 crore
- 1Heath keeps 6 paise of every rupee ordered6% take rate₹6.48 crore
Lab revenue, plan case
- Patient visits in a year across 1,000 doctors90 lakh
- 1 in 5 visits ends with a lab test18 lakh
- About 1 in 7 of those tests is booked through 1Heath15%2.7 lakh
- At about ₹700 a test, the tests are worth₹18.9 crore
- 1Heath's booking fee is 10 paise of every rupee₹1.89 crore
Costs, plan case: turning speech into text costs about ₹2 a visit (₹1.88 crore a year); drafting the note costs about ₹2 a visit (₹1.80 crore). The doctor subscription brings in ₹0.20 crore.
| One year, 1,000 doctors | Conservative | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine purchases through 1Heath | ₹14.40 cr | ₹108.00 cr |
| Medicine revenue | ₹0.36 cr | ₹6.48 cr |
| Lab bookings | ₹0.81 cr | ₹1.89 cr |
| Doctor plan | ₹0.20 cr | ₹0.20 cr |
| Total revenue | ₹1.37 cr | ₹8.57 cr |
| Speech | ₹1.88 cr | ₹1.88 cr |
| AI drafting | ₹0.90 cr | ₹1.80 cr |
| Team, delivery and shared costs | ₹2.66 cr | ₹3.60 cr |
| Operating result | −₹4.07 cr | +₹1.29 cr |
| Revenue per doctor a year | ₹13,700 | ₹85,700 |
Compared with our earlier business plan, these figures add the measured speech cost (₹0.81 a minute, not ₹0.50) and the drafting model's cost, and they derive lab revenue from its parts. The plan-case profit falls from ₹3.28 crore to ₹1.29 crore as a result. We would rather show the lower number.
Unit Economics
What one doctor is worth, plan case
- Money in from 1,000 doctors in a year₹8.57 crore
- Minus what the AI costs (speech ₹1.88 crore, drafting ₹1.80 crore)₹4.89 crore
- Per doctor, per monthwhat each doctor brings in after AI costs₹4,076
- Winning one doctor costs about ₹20,000, so that cost is earned back in₹20,000 ÷ ₹4,0764.9 months
The team and other fixed costs are about ₹3.60 crore a year. Each doctor brings in about ₹49,000 a year after AI costs, so about 740 doctors cover them. Reaching ₹100 crore of revenue takes about 11,700 doctors, under 1 in 100 of India's registered allopathic doctors[3].
In the conservative case, contribution is negative (−₹1,174 a doctor a month): the AI costs more than the doctor brings in. That case does not pay back at any scale until AI costs fall or medicine volume rises, which is exactly why the pilot measures those two numbers first.
What Moves the Result Most
| Change, at 1,000 doctors | Conservative | Plan |
|---|---|---|
| Purchases per clinic up ₹50,000 a month | +₹0.45 cr | +₹2.16 cr |
| Drafting done on our own model (cost near zero) | +₹0.90 cr | +₹1.80 cr |
| Speech cost halved | +₹0.94 cr | +₹0.94 cr |
| Take rate up one point | +₹0.14 cr | +₹1.08 cr |
| One more clinic in 10 ordering | +₹0.12 cr | +₹1.08 cr |
AI cost per consultation is the lever 1Heath controls directly. Speech and language-model prices in India have been falling; our own fine-tuned models on India-hosted servers are on the roadmap.
Five Years, Plan Case
Doctor numbers are targets, not forecasts. Revenue uses the plan case per doctor; team and shared costs are assumed to grow more slowly than doctors (to the power 0.6, our assumption).
| Year | Doctors | Revenue | Operating result | Acquisition |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 100 | ₹0.43 cr | −₹0.35 cr | ₹0.20 cr |
| 2 | 1,000 | ₹4.71 cr | +₹0.18 cr | ₹1.80 cr |
| 3 | 4,000 | ₹21.43 cr | +₹5.99 cr | ₹6.00 cr |
| 4 | 10,000 | ₹60.01 cr | +₹22.67 cr | ₹12.00 cr |
| 5 | 20,000 | ₹128.59 cr | +₹55.09 cr | ₹20.00 cr |
The conservative case on the same path reaches ₹20.6 crore of revenue in year five with an operating loss of ₹34.6 crore. The difference between the two cases is the whole investment question, and the pilot is designed to answer it with real clinics before large money is spent.
Why This Can Work, and What Could Break It
| Reason it can work | What could break it |
|---|---|
| The doctor gets something on day one: no typing, a legible signed prescription | Doctors try it and stop; measured at four weeks in the pilot |
| Revenue rides on purchases that already happen | Clinic pharmacies keep their existing distributors |
| Patients, desks and pharmacies pay nothing, so the record spreads | Patients do not consent or do not return |
| The government has built the rails: 98.9 crore ABHA accounts and 127.5 crore linked health records[4] | Interoperability stays low in practice |
| AI costs fall every year | Established scribes compete on price |
The Firewall Between Money and Medicine
A company that earns from medicines and also helps write prescriptions has an obvious conflict. India has seen where that leads: the Supreme Court held that freebies to doctors are prohibited and cannot be deducted as business expenses[5], and a federation of medical representatives told the Court that one company spent ₹1,000 crore on freebies to promote a paracetamol brand[6]. 1Heath's rules:
- 1
Suggestions never depend on margin. What the doctor is shown never depends on what 1Heath or the pharmacy earns. No own-label medicines will be suggested.
- 2
No payment to doctors for prescribing, ordering or referring, in any form.
- 3
The patient chooses any pharmacy and any lab; generic names are always printed.
- 4
No pharmaceutical sponsorship, no advertising, no sale of data.
- 5
Legal opinion first. Doctors may supply medicines to their own patients without a shop licence only within limits[7]; 1Heath will not take title to medicines without wholesale licences, and the whole model goes to counsel before the first order.
Sources
- ANI via The Tribune. Indian pharma market reached Rs 2.40 lakh crore with 8.1% growth in 2025 (Pharmarack report). tribuneindia.com
- BioSpectrum India. Can phased trade margin rationalisation boost pharma growth? (channel margins by route). biospectrumindia.com
- Union Health Minister, written reply in the Rajya Sabha, 2 December 2025, as reported by Deccan Herald. deccanherald.com
- National Health Authority. ABDM Insights public dashboard, figures last updated 5 November 2026, 8:33 PM. dashboard.abdm.gov.in
- Lakshmikumaran and Sridharan. No tax exemption on gifts to doctors by pharma companies (Apex Laboratories v. DCIT, Supreme Court, 22 February 2022). lakshmisri.com
- LiveLaw. Pharma companies distributed Rs 1,000 crore freebies among doctors to prescribe Dolo-650: FMRAI tells Supreme Court, 18 August 2022. livelaw.in
- LiveLaw. Doctor can't be punished under Drugs and Cosmetics Act for storing small quantities of medicines: Supreme Court (S. Athilakshmi, 15 March 2023). livelaw.in