
Why the man who built Practo to find doctors is now using AI to find disease first
From Daybreak by The Ken
April 17, 2026 · 12 min · Episode 730
About this episode
The episode discusses how Cent, a startup founded by the creator of Practo, is using AI for early disease detection through full-body scans.
India's life expectancy has doubled since 1950. But 65% of deaths are still from diseases caught too late. Cent, the new startup from Practo's founder, thinks it has an answer: full-body AI scans that find risks before they become diagnoses. At Rs 20,000–30,000 a scan, it's already found critical findings in hundreds of patients — with zero false positives, it claims. But Cent doesn't diagnose. It doesn't refer. And it has no proprietary technology. So what exactly are you paying for — and what happens after it finds something? Daybreak is produced from the newsroom of The Ken, India’s first subscriber-only business news platform. Subscribe for more exclusive, deeply-reported, and analytical business stories.
Topics covered
- AI in healthcare
- early disease detection
- startup innovation
- health technology
- business news
Keywords
- AI scans
- disease detection
- healthcare
- Practo
- Cent
- India
- life expectancy
- full-body scans
Mentioned in this episode
Organizations: Practo, Cent
Places: India
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