Healthify on Wednesday announced a partnership with Novo Nordisk India, the local arm of the Danish pharmaceutical giant behind the weight-loss drug Wegovy, to provide specialised nutrition support for patients on GLP-1 medications. Alongside the deal, the company unveiled Ria Voice, a real-time Al health coach built with OpenAl. Founder-CEO Tushar Vashisht tells Anees Hussain, how India is on the brink of an inflection point for weight loss drug adoption. Excerpts:
Q: You are predicting 100 million Indians will be on glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) drugs by 2030. What drives this forecast?
Vashisht: In the US, 20% of the population – one in five American adults – have been on GLP-1 just in three years. That’s faster than mobile phone or Internet penetration. It’s the second fastest adoption in human history after AI. India will follow a similar curve. By 2030, 10% of India’s population– 100 million people – could be on GLPs. Novo just reduced prices, generics are entering next year with Sun Pharma and Dr Reddy’s. By 2030, pricing will be highly accessible like what happened with mobile data. But the drug labels clearly state it’s a companion to nutrition and fitness intervention —that’s where we come in.
Vashisht on partnership with Novo Nordisk
Q: How does the Novo Nordisk partnership work?
Vashisht: We launched Healthify Rx in April this year. People on Wegovy get access to our subscription—dieticians, Ria Voice, the AI coach. The biggest side effect of GLP-1 is muscle loss, but in our cohort of nearly 1,000 customers, we’re seeing a 4.2% median increase in muscle mass from baseline. We achieve this by engaging customers to eat more protein and do strength training. Our survey shows side effects are the number one barrier preventing GLP-1 adoption, even more than cost. Healthify Rx is already in double-digit percentages of revenue. I estimate it will overtake our regular business in 12-18 months.
Vashisht on AI-first transformation?
Q: What does the partnership with OpenAI bring?
Vashisht: We have used OpenAI’s real-time voice capability to support our health coach ‘Ria’. It’s a health coach in every human being’s pocket. Ria Voice operates natively in audio—speech-to-speech, not text transcription. It understands context across sleep, stress, CGM, nutrition, fitness in 60-plus languages including 15 Indian languages. It’s accessible via WhatsApp and Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses—a global first for health apps.
Q: How’s the AI-first transformation impacting operations?
Vashisht: We’re down to 300 dietitians from 1,000 a year ago. We were 100% human coaching until 2019. Today, 74% of paid subscribers are AI-only with no human dietitian. Only 26% have AI plus humans. The 300 best-in-class that remain, are also able to do more today with AI. Which is why our customer retention and NPS scores are the best it’s been in years. We have 45 million registered users.
Q: Where does India business profitability stand?
Vashisht: We expect to be close to profitability at the end of FY26. FY27 will be profitable. We added a premium subscription layer—the basic free app now has limited utility, you need to pay at least Rs 100 a month. We’ve also reduced dependence on performance marketing and focused on retention and renewals. The Novo partnership and an upcoming deal with Fortis healthcare will help.
Q: How has your US expansion been?
Vashisht: We are doing $1-2 million run rate revenue in the US. We expect the US business to be larger than India. We are in discussions to strike partnerships with RD reimbursement companies who can offset dietitian costs through insurance. We will likely raise another round for US growth. We are also looking to expand to over 12 countries.
Q: What are your IPO plans?
Vashisht: 2027-28 would be ideal. We are considering both India or US public market. Currently, NASDAQ seems more likely. We want to hit $200-300 million in revenue with strong growth rates, and consistent profitability before we list.
