KOCHI:
The Ayurveda-based healthcare system is moving from a traditional and family-owned business model to include thought leaders and entrepreneurs, who are critical of processes and help streamline delivery and improve user experience.
It is moving from a faith-based practice to an evidential form of medicine. This will help in Ayurveda gaining acceptance as a preferred form of treatment among the masses. The scaling up of the existing opportunities will help multiply jobs, up-skill the work population and will bring prosperity to the society at large. This was the prominent message delivered by the eminent speakers at the CII Global Ayurveda Summit 2018.
Ayurveda has many clinical capabilities, including treating infectious diseases like malaria and dengue, providing primary healthcare and post trauma help. Unfortunately, these are not advertised or explained to the common man, said Dr P M Varier, Chief Physician, Arya Vaidyashala, Kottakal. Besides, there are numerous products in the market which are disguised as Ayurvedic formulations and food supplements to bypass the stringent regulations of the government.
“Ayurveda has to rebuild its brand image to move beyond beauty products and food supplements to mainstream medicine and services. These should also go through the same stringent rules like their allopathic counterparts if they have to be taken seriously,” said Arvind Varchaswi, Managing Director, Sri Sri Tattva.
One of the major challenges faced by the industry is the lack of availability of raw materials. Today, 90 per cent of the medicinal herbs and plants are sourced from forests and mountains. There is a need to protect and preserve this priceless resource and also to consider commercial farming. “Scientific processes should be developed to help farmers grow them as crops,” said Vijaykumar of Vaidyaratnam.
There is a huge lack of awareness and mistrust about Ayurveda. Most sceptics claim that Ayurveda medicines are harmful as they contain heavy metals. Madhusudan Chauhan, Director, Jiva Ayurveda, clarified that it is important to understand if these heavy metals are essential ingredients or contaminants due to poor processing standards. “Lack of proper documentation builds mistrust in the minds of consumers,” explained Baby Mathew, Managing Director, Somatheeram Group of Industries. Clinical trials and evidence sharing will help improve the scenario for future students and practitioners.
Out of 40,000 Ayurvedic formulations, only 200 have patents. Thus there is a need to use Intellectual Property Rights to help India claim what is rightfully ours. “Technology such as social media should be used effectively for brand building exercises,” said Ramesh Vangal, Chairman, Kerala Ayurveda Ltd. Modern technological developments will help build scale and streamline the system to improve the experience and interaction of patients through apps, telemedicine, etc.
It is important that Ayurveda extends its learnings to other forms of mainstream medical modalities such as physiotherapy. The next level of understanding for Ayurveda would be to integrate its learning with the latest in medical technology: genome profiling. This will help in prevention of disease, creating personalised medicine, and in better understanding of response to medication. If the Ayurveda healthcare industry adopts the new technologies and streamlines processes, it has the capability of tripling revenues in the next five years through treatment and wellness programmes alone.
