Reimagining Global Healthcare: How Qure.ai is Scaling AI to a Billion Lives

A Conversation with Prashant Warier, Co-founder and CEO of Qure.ai, and Anantharaman Viswanathan, Research Director, Frost & Sullivan

Download Frost & Sullivan’s Transformational Growth Leadership Interview with Prashant Warier, Co-founder and CEO of Qure.ai.

How a global health-tech innovator is bridging diagnostic gaps across 100+ countries

As healthcare systems around the world struggle to keep up with rising patient demands, workforce shortages, and resource constraints, Qure.ai is redefining what’s possible through AI. In this exclusive conversation, Prashant Warier, co-founder and CEO of Qure.ai, shares how the company evolved from an imaging AI startup to a global digital health enabler — bringing advanced diagnostics to underserved communities and reimagining care delivery at scale.

“Healthcare doesn’t just need smarter tools — it needs smarter systems. AI is not optional anymore; it’s the key to delivering proactive, equitable care at scale.”

Prashant Warier, Co-founder and CEO, Qure.ai

A Vision for Equitable Care

Ananth: Prashant, how did Qure.ai begin its journey?

Prashant Warier: When we started Qure.ai in 2016, our mission was clear: use AI to make healthcare more accessible and equitable. We began by asking a simple but bold question – Can AI help clinicians make faster, more accurate decisions at scale?

Our early focus was on interpreting radiology images to detect diseases like TB, cancer, and stroke. But as we deployed in the real world, it became obvious that radiology was just one part of a much larger care delivery challenge. We evolved quickly to support full care pathways, whether it’s a rural clinic in Africa or a busy hospital in the U.S.

Today, we are powering care in over 100 countries, showing how AI can enable both reach and impact. Our belief is simple: healthcare must be proactive, not reactive.

Three Transformations Reshaping the Industry

Ananth: What key transformations are driving the future of healthcare?
Prashant Warier: We are seeing healthcare move into a new era where technology isn’t just an add-on but a central peg to how care is delivered.

First, generative AI is transforming clinical workflows, taking on routine tasks like summarizing histories or drafting notes. It frees doctors to focus on what truly matters: patient care.

Second, we are moving towards connected care ecosystems. With IoT [Internet of Things], wearables, and telehealth, care isn’t confined to hospitals anymore. It can follow the patient wherever they are, which is crucial for chronic conditions and underserved populations.

Third, digital therapeutics and precision health are gaining momentum. AI and genomics together are enabling more tailored, predictive care. Qure.ai is at the intersection of all three — Integrating AI across diagnostics, pathways, and populations to build smarter, more inclusive systems.

Accelerating Pharma Innovation with AI

Ananth: How is Qure.ai collaborating with pharmaceutical companies?
Prashant Warier: One of the biggest bottlenecks in drug development is patient identification. Finding the right patients at the right stage of disease progression is crucial for clinical trials and steering positive patient outcomes, especially for conditions like lung cancer where early symptoms often go unnoticed.

We work with over half of the top 20 global pharma companies, embedding AI into screening programs to find at-risk patients earlier and link them to care.

For example, with AstraZeneca, we have enabled over 5 million chest X-ray scans worldwide, identifying lung nodules early and improving access to timely treatment, especially in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

With J&J MedTech, we are setting up Incidental Pulmonary Nodule Clinics across India to proactively detect and manage early-stage lung abnormalities. It’s a shift from reactive to population-health-driven care.

The Billion Lives Ambition

Ananth: What’s your five-year vision for Qure.ai?
Prashant Warier: We are incredibly honored to be named one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential Companies in 2025. But for us, the mission has just begun.

Our vision is to become the most deployed and trusted digital health enabler globally. We want to touch a billion lives in the next five years — not just through diagnostics, but across end-to-end care journeys.

That means supporting national health ecosystems, powering chronic disease management, and embedding AI right from PHCs [primary health centres] in rural areas to tertiary hospitals in advanced economies.

Scaling Impact at the Grassroots

Ananth: Where do you see the biggest opportunities?
Prashant Warier: The biggest opportunity lies in embedding AI deeper into health systems. In LMICs, that means being present at every primary health centre – bringing diagnostics to the first point of care.

We recently launched Aira, our AI-powered clinical co-pilot. It supports frontline workers, even those with limited clinical training, helping them make confident decisions in real time.

In the West, our Lung Cancer Continuum ensures no patient or nodule is left behind, by tracking, measuring, and alerting clinicians throughout the care journey.

Ultimately, the opportunity is country-scale adoption. That’s when AI begins to close systemic care gaps.

Overcoming Global Health Complexity

Ananth: What are the biggest challenges you face?
Prashant Warier: Scaling globally means working within vastly diverse health systems – each with its own regulations, workflows, and resource limitations.

The other challenge is funding. Public health programs are under strain worldwide. So, we must continually prove that AI isn’t just innovative – it’s cost-effective, scalable, and essential to building stronger health systems.

Innovation Grounded in Reality

Ananth: How do you drive innovation? And how do you handle failures?
Prashant Warier: Innovation at Qure.ai starts on the ground – with clinicians, partners, and real-world challenges. It’s not just Research & Development in a lab.

Every product we build is meant to fit into existing workflows and amplify human expertise. And yes, some ideas don’t land. But we don’t see that as failure. It’s part of our build-deploy-learn-improve cycle.

We constantly iterate, refining what works and learning from what doesn’t.

Built for Scale, Built for Equity

Ananth: What differentiates Qure.ai from others in the space?
Prashant Warier: Unlike others focused solely on high-income, hospital-centric markets, we operate across the entire spectrum – from remote PHCs to advanced urban hospitals.

Our tech is modality-agnostic, spanning lung health, neuro, infectious diseases, and chronic care. We have gone beyond point solutions to become a true digital health enabler.

Final Thoughts: From Optional to Inevitable

Ananth: What’s one message you would like to leave the world with?
Prashant Warier: AI in healthcare is no longer optional, it’s inevitable.

The future belongs to proactive, AI-enabled health systems that can scale care without compromising quality. AI isn’t here to replace humans, it’s here to amplify human judgment, deliver faster insights, and ultimately make healthcare more equitable.

That’s the transformation we are leading at Qure.ai.