10% of Indians suffer from Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD). Every year India adds another 2 lakh new cases of CKD. The increasing number of CKD patients also increases the demand for dialysis. The NHS describes dialysis as "A procedure to remove waste products and excess fluid from the blood when the kidneys stop working properly. It often involves diverting blood to a machine to be cleaned."

Where the global demand for dialysis is at 8%, the demand for dialysis in India is at 31%. Even the USA has a mere 6% demand for dialysis, making India's situation unique. About 50% of the patients needing dialysis reside in rural India where the facilities are marginal. They often have to travel over 100 kilometres to reach the dialysis centre. 

Along with accessibility, CKD patients also have to worry over the affordability. An average session of hemodialysis costs between Rs 1700 to Rs 4000. The average annual cost can go upto Rs 2 lakhs and even more. To tackle the problem of affordability and accessibility in this, Shashank Moddhia left his job in the USA to start the Renal Project in 2019. 

As the quality manager for the Asia Pacific region of Baxter International, an affordable hemodialysis company based out of the USA, he saw the disparity in the quality of medical services offered in India versus in other Asian countries, like Malaysia and the Philippines.

He quit his job in the USA and came to India to start the Renal Project. The idea of the venture is to take dialysis to the rural areas instead of bringing them all the way to the city. And to do so at a 40% reduced cost. This is possible because he plans to scale down the dialysis operation to a specialised yet small facility of 2 to 3 beds. 

For its vision the venture has received seed funds of Rs 25 lakh from 100X.VC in 2019, followed by Rs 2.3 crore from various angel investors in August 2020. The plan is to use the funds to scale up its 2-3 bed small facility in 1000 locations that will be able to cater to over 10,000 patients. 

Will Renal Project be the answer to satisfying India’s dialysis demand?