How Inochi Grew by Focusing on What Really Matters
📖 5 min read | #MedTech #SCIInnovation #Healthcare
The Challenge: Addressing Wound Care Gaps for People with SCI
After completing her PhD, Dr. Shivani Gupta began her fellowship in medical innovations, where she came across a critical yet often overlooked challenge —non-healing wounds in people with spinal cord injuries (SCI). Through her work during Biodesign Fellowship at School of International Biodesign, AIIMS New Delhi, she saw firsthand how chronic wounds like pressure sores could worsen long-term health outcomes. This sparked the idea for Inochi Care, a startup focused on developing innovative wound care solutions.
While Inochi’s technology was promising, key gaps remained in understanding usability in specific use cases like people living with SCI. How could the device better integrate into users’ daily lives? What did people with lived experience of SCI truly need from a wound care device? And how could Inochi strengthen its commercialization strategy to scale beyond its initial market traction in India?
That’s where the Praxis SCI Innovation Incubate Program came in.
Uncovering Critical Insights: Beyond Clinicians to Persons with lived Experience
For Shivani, one of the most transformative aspects of the Praxis program was engaging directly with individuals living with an SCI. .
“Before the program, we thought mostly from the perspective of healthcare providers and caretakers,” she reflects. “But through Praxis, we realized we needed to understand the daily realities of the people who would be using the product.”
A pivotal moment came when someone in the PLEX (Persons with lived Experience) community asked:
“Can this device fit onto my wheelchair?”
This simple yet powerful question led Inochi to reimagine how their product could seamlessly integrate into the lives of wheelchair users. The team explored different attachment mechanisms—mounting the device under a wheelchair, securing it to the armrest, and testing various support systems.
Refining the Product & Business Model
The program’s structured approach, balancing research, user insights, and commercialization, was a game-changer for Inochi.
“The biggest learning was keeping three key areas—lived experience validation, clinical validation, and business strategy—running in parallel, without confusing one milestone with another,” Shivani explains.
Key changes Inochi implemented:
Product Adaptations: Instead of a one-size-fits-all device, Inochi developed different product versions with small usability tweaks to fit various healthcare settings—hospitals, home care, and now, wheelchairs.
Sales Pipeline & Commercialization Strategy: The program helped Inochi build a clear, actionable roadmap for financial sustainability. “We now know how to project our sales pipeline for the next year and what it takes to reach break-even,” Shivani shares.
Lasting Impact: A Stronger, More Scalable Business
Since completing the Praxis SCI Incubate Program, Inochi has significantly scaled its operations. The company’s revenue has grown multifold since January, and it has successfully brought on board a number of new customers.
But beyond financial growth, Inochi now has a sharper, more user-driven product strategy. “We no longer have to second-guess whether to prioritize further validation or launch a product,” says Shivani. “We know what needs emphasis at different stages.”
“I have already been telling other assistive technology founders about this program,” she says. “It gives you a long-term perspective early on. One that helps build a truly robust roadmap.”
About Inochi Care
Inochi Care is a health tech start up developing innovative solutions for wound care and management. Inochi Care focus on wound care products that are designed and engineered for scale and adoption across healthcare sectors and different markets. The technology development is inspired by “patient needs” as well as “healthcare provider needs”. With their mission to “Healing the Non healing wounds”, the first range of products are developed for accelerated healing of non-healing wounds including pressure ulcers. InoHeal is a multi-therapeutic technology to create and maintain optimum wound healing environment at the wound site using biophysical stimulation. Their goal is to reduce patient’s pain and suffering, decrease daily loss of productivity, cut down the financial burden that results from non-healing wounds.