India’s healthcare is evolving fast. With most diagnostic infrastruc ture locked in cities, rural areas have long been underserved. Now, startups like Saambavi Labs are closing that gap leveraging AI, mobile diagnostics, and offline-first tech to deliver timely, affordable care at the last mile. It’s not just innovation, it’s healthcare reimagined, where access meets impact.

Founded in 2021, Saambavi Labs was inspired by a simple yet powerful question posed by renowned cardiac surgeon Dr Devi Shetty to the CEO of a leading healthcare company, “Why aren’t advanced healthcare solutions affordable and relevant for India and the Global South?”

This challenge sparked a passion in the founding team seasoned professionals from Philips Healthcare and GE, alongside senior clinicians from top Indian hospitals like Sir Ganga Ram, Max-Saket, GTB and Gleneagles. Together, they set out to build a diagnostic platform uniquely suited to India’s healthcare needs. What truly sets it apart is the development of India-specific AI models.

AI with Clinical Oversight

Saambavi Labs’ AI engine, SwaRX, fuses X-rays, lab reports, stethoscope sounds, and symptoms into accurate, doctor-verified diagnoses. Trained on India-specific data, it captures regional nuances for nationwide relevance. With offline-first, edge computing capabilities, it works seamlessly in low-connectivity areas. Fully ABDM-compatible, it integrates effortlessly into public healthcare systems.

Among its most impactful innovations is TBDX, a smartphone based tuber culosis pre-screening tool. TBDX uses AI to analyze cough audio, symptoms to screen for pulmonary and chest X-rays, TB in less than two minutes.

In preliminary pilot implementations in Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, the tool demonstrated up to 85 percent accuracy significantly outperforming conventional community prescreening methods, which typically report around 60 percent accuracy.

Most importantly, TBDX addresses critical challenges faced by governments and organizations in TB eradication particularly the social stigma surrounding TB and high dropout rates. By allowing private, non-invasive self-screening, it speeds up TB diagnosis and boosts treatment adherence two key challenges in TB care.

Rooted in the Make in India ethos, Saambavi Labs builds its entire software stack locally, tailored to India's clinical and infrastructural needs. With data sovereignty at its core, patient data stays with the patient shared only via consent under ABDM protocols. HIPAA-grade safeguards ensure anonymized, secure processing. This privacy-first approach earns trust from patients, regulators, and public institutions alike crucial as digital health scales nationwide.

The Power of Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Saambavi Labs bridges clinical expertise and engineering excellence, with a team of veteran doctors and MedTech engineers. Their AI tools are co-developed with clinicians, ensuring medical logic is deeply embedded, not just coded. “This isn’t AI for AI’s sake, it’s clinical wisdom in machine form”, says a senior doctor.

Initial skepticism was met with proof, namely real-world pilots, transparent AI outputs, and explainable algorithms. By training over 350 health workers and forging state level partnerships, Saambavi Labs is earning trust and transforming public health delivery one validated deployment at a time.

Looking Ahead

On the global front, Saambavi Labs has incorporated a Singapore entity, OshAI Healthcare, to drive international expansion, and is also establishing a Dubai office to serve the MENA region. With India-built, clinically validated solutions, the company aims to address global healthcare gaps and bring equitable, tech-driven care to emerging economies worldwide.

In the future, it will be expanding its AI platform with LivoCares for non alcoholic fatty liver disease screening and SwaRX, a multi-disease engine for labs and PHCs. It’s also building a pioneering Ayurveda-integrated AI platform, blending traditional Indian medicine with modern diagnostics set to launch in 2026.