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‘Disrupting’ in the healthcare sector is a tricky word… Healthcare is different and needs to be treated with a lot of respect
Just how hard is it to bring about transformation in healthcare? Magpie met with one of the UK’s leading start-ups in the sector to find out. Interview by Rishi Dastidar
Images courtesy of ECHO
Echo co-founders Stephen Bourke (L) and Sai Lakshmi
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tephen Bourke is a man in a hurry. What start-up founder isn’t, you might ask, but since he and co-founder Sai Lakshmi started Echo in 2016, the business has been moving at a rapid clip, to become the leading light of a cluster of healthcare focused startups based in London. Echo’s initial focus is on helping National Health Service (NHS) patients get their repeat prescriptions more easily through a mobile phone app. And while making repeat prescriptions work better might not sound sexy it’s important, as 40% of medication isn’t taken as directed, costing the UK’s healthcare system wasted billions every year. It’s a task that Echo is succeeding at, so much so that it has attracted investment from leading venture capital firms such as White Star and Rocket Internet. The business was named Best British Mobile Start-up at this year’s Mobile World Congress.
