Following a surge in uptake during the Covid-19 pandemic, the telehealth industry is courting investment to further innovation and increase access to care in emerging markets. Digital health companies raised a record $57.2bn in global venture capital funding in 2021, a 79% jump from the $32bn raised in 2020, with 30% of the total directed towards telehealth. However, this figure dropped to $25.9bn in 2022, with telehealth start-ups accounting for $7.5bn of this figure, down 57% from 2021. An estimated $140bn in private sector finance will be needed annually between 2015 and 2030 to realise the UN’s health-related Sustainable Development Goals, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, underscoring the importance of boosting spending in the global health tech space.
Telehealth Solutions
As health tech ecosystems in developed countries mature, emerging markets offer an avenue for digital health technology to expand access to care and improve patient outcomes, while also bringing down costs. For example, in 2020 there were an estimated 1.64 doctors per 10,000 people in Ghana, compared to 35.6 in the US, 31.7 in the UK and as high as 70.6 in Sweden, according to the World Health Organisation. Investment in low-cost, high-impact fields such as telehealth could help to bridge this gap, with Africa’s health tech market on course to reach a projected value of $11bn by 2025.
In 2011 the Swiss non-profit Novartis Foundation launched a pilot project for telemedicine in Ghana’s Ashanti Region, spanning 30 communities and covering up to 35,000 people. Following this pilot project, in 2016 the Ghana Health Service expanded the initiative across the rest of the country. In October 2021 a local health tech start-up, mPharma, which works to enhance access to low-cost medicines, announced plans to construct 100 virtual health centres in seven African markets. Backed by Silicon Valley-based venture capital fund Breyer Capital, the start-up raised over $50m between its founding in 2013 and 2021. As of October 2023 mPharma had partnerships with 155 hospitals in nine countries, covering 2m patients.
Many countries are leveraging 5G, artificial intelligence (AI) and the internet of things to improve patient outcomes, reduce medical staff burnout, and lower health care and operating costs. Internet connectivity plays a fundamental role in India’s health tech expansion, for example with AI-powered predictive analytics enabling the early detection of diabetes and cancer. These technologies could be integrated with portable screening devices to provide early testing for underserved rural areas, where 70% of the population lives. According to India’s National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency, the value of the health care sector is set to reach $132bn by the end of 2023, while the telemedicine market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31% to $5.4bn by 2025.
Enabling Expansion
Valued at $1.8bn in 2020, the telehealth market in Latin America is expected to see a CAGR of 20.3% to reach a value of $5.6bn by 2026. Colombia, for example, witnessed a 7000% increase in virtual appointments in 2020. The use of Spanish in the region outside of Brazil could enable cross-border telehealth consultations, boosting access to and quality of health care in spite of local infrastructure gaps.
The pandemic also catalysed the expansion of telehealth and health tech in Asia. A March 2022 survey of the Asia-Pacific region by consultancy Bain & Company found that telehealth usage had doubled since 2019, and is expected to reach 56-76% penetration by 2024, with Indonesia and China at the forefront. Many super apps in East Asia offer digital health services, including Gojek, which merged with e-commerce marketplace Tokopedia in May 2021 and rebranded as GoTo. Indonesian health care superapps Alodokter and Halodoc have received significant investment, with Amazon Web Services reporting in May 2023 that Halodoc’s network of 3300 hospital partners and 20,000 doctors was serving over 20m patients monthly across the country.
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