UAE-based digital health platform Altibbi, which raised $44 million in series B funding last month, plans to expand its offerings with the launch of new diagnostic services in Saudi Arabia and Egypt.
“What we’re doing right now is we’re focusing on the telehealth service in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. This round of funding will enable us to launch our drug delivery and diagnostic services in both countries,” said Altibbi CEO and Co-founder Jalil Lebadi, in an interview with Arab News.
Once Altibbi establishes a strong presence in the Kingdom and Egypt with the new services, he said they will raise more funds to expand further into North Africa and Pakistan.
One of the first to start a portal in the Arab region for various types of medical content, the Jordan-founded company has grown rapidly to become a digital health platform providing primary telehealth services in 14 countries.
Altibbi, which also offers remote medical consultation services allowing users to connect directly with accredited doctors over phone calls or text chat, has managed to provide over 5 million consultations in the past four years.
Lebadi said they aim to be the digital health platform at the core of the patient journey or the health journey for patients.
Unlike ride-hailing or food delivery, he said, “when you order something one day is completely independent of what you have ordered the day before.”
“In healthcare, every decision that you make every single day is very much dependent on what you did the day before and the year before and what the drugs you took ten years ago. So, these are all very connected and very related,” the Altibbi CEO explained.
He pointed out that healthcare is still disconnected from the physical world which leads to a loss of time, money, and effort for clients.
“This is something that digital health aims to fix along the way. We have already done a lot with our primary care service, which actually complimented this part of the world, where we don’t have proper physical primary care infrastructure,” said Lebadi.
He explained they have augmented that by introducing telehealth for primary care services. “And we want to continue that, we want to establish drug delivery, we want to establish diagnostic services.”
Altibbi aims to create a full medical experience through its platform that can allow users to receive prescriptions, medical drugs, and even lab tests done at their homes.
It wants to take the advantage of being an early mover while capitalizing on the low competition in the market right now due to high regulations and lack of trust.
“The regulatory system is an ally of ours as, after so many years, we have managed to crack it. We are actually today the most licensed digital health company in the Arab world,” he revealed
“We’re licensed in Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. We’re working with the government as part of a round table to regulate telehealth and digital health platforms,” Lebadi concluded.
