The Story of a ‘Simple and Elegant’ Health Care Startup
Like most high school students, sister and brother Shreya and Rahul K., spent part of the pandemic hunkered down at home — in their case, Rumson, N.J. But rather than succumbing to the isolation and frustration, their quarantine became a time of innovation. They have added the title of co-CEOs to their résumés.
With the help of Sourish J., a rising sophomore at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania (Penn), who lives in neighboring Holmdel, N.J., in April 2020 the three friends co-founded Altrui Foundation. The nonprofit diverts short-dated medicines that will be expiring within a year to community organizations, rather than the typical practice where manufacturers destroy those medications. They have built a 20-person project team of students, ranging in age from high school to medical school.
7 Manufacturers, 7 Organizations
The result is a growing entrepreneurial venture that Wharton management professor Tyler Wry calls simple, elegant and effective.
“Nothing is really pattern-breaking about what they’re doing, but it’s a clever solution to a problem they saw with these orphan medicines not being able to find good homes and being destroyed instead of being put to good use,” says Wry, an expert in entrepreneurship who was approached by the group to serve on Altrui’s five-person advisory board. “What I really like about this is that they weren’t trying to do something insanely overwrought or innovative for the sake of being innovative. That’s where the best social ventures come from.”
Shreya, Rahul and Sourish have collaborated before on social-impact projects, including distributing water filters to students in India. But this one seemed especially important during a global pandemic.
“I feel like I’ve had a lot of conversations about health-care related issues, and this one made so much sense to work on,” says Shreya, who just graduated high school and is headed to Yale University in the fall. “We’re helping the patients and getting the medications somewhere more useful, instead of destroying them. We came across numbers that said $5 billion worth of excess and unused medications go to waste each year. That’s a crazy statistic.”
Charities that distribute medicine to patients in need will accept short-dated medications anywhere from three to nine months before they expire. Altrui is committed to the mission that end users will never receive expired medications, which can contain harmful bacteria and lose strength and effectiveness.
Altrui’s business model pairs manufacturing companies with community organizations to distribute medicines to people in need, supported by technology. Chief Technology Officer Justin Z., a rising sophomore at Penn (and also a Holmdel native), has spent a lot of time in the past few months automating Altrui’s process on its medication-distribution platform 2L, complete with messages detailing legal terms and conditions for handling orders between manufacturers and organizations.
It works like this: pharmaceutical manufacturers upload an Excel spreadsheet to the Altrui platform listing what short-dated medications they have to offer. Short-dated medications are typically three to nine months from expiring. Depending on legal specifications, they can designate a specific organization to receive those medications, or they can make them available to any charities on the platform.
Charitable organizations that distribute medicines to the community then review and download the inventory that the manufacturers have to offer and specify their medicine order on the spreadsheet. They re-upload the spreadsheet to Altrui’s platform, and the pharma company is notified of the organization’s request. The manufacturer ships the order to the organization and uploads the packing slip. The organization also uploads a receipt once the order has been received to verify the specifics. Altrui finally provides a slide to both sides detailing transaction information, including the size of the donation, an estimated tax, and the number of bottles shipped.
“The constant goal is to bring on as many partners as we can, both manufacturers and organizations.” — Shreya K., Altrui Co-founder
To date, Altrui has partnered with seven pharmaceutical manufacturers, including Rising Pharmaceuticals, Aurobindo Pharma, Ingenus Pharmaceuticals and Camber Pharmaceuticals, and seven community organizations, such as MAP International, CitiHope International, Americares, SIRUM and Faith Community Pharmacy.
In the past nine months, Altrui has supported the shipment of seven rounds of medications and handled 45 total orders. This has involved getting more than $40 million of medications to the nonprofits and to the patients in need, totaling some 100 million bottles. The most common diverted medications on the platform are Omeprazole, Cetirizine and Amoxicillin, for which Altrui has facilitated the shipment of 50 million units.
“From the manufacturer side, it’s really beneficial,” notes Rahul, who will start his senior year at St. Paul’s School in New Hampshire this fall. “A lot of times the reason why manufacturers don’t donate to an NGO [non-governmental organization] or charitable organization is because of lack of convenience, lack of standardization, and a lot of the legal work hasn’t been developed yet. We have standardized that system and made it more transparent for both sides, and that’s helped get the transactions flowing.”
From the community-organization side, Altrui appears to be serving a market need. Paul S. Moore II, CEO of CitiHope Relief and Development in Margaretville, N.Y., began working with Altrui in the fall of 2020. Moore began his mission work 30 years ago, and has organization has since delivered more than $1.4 billion in medicine and food aid around the world.
“We have worked across the globe, from former Soviet republics to eastern Europe, across Africa, and Latin American and the Caribbean. Most of the communities we serve are experiencing poverty in addition to limited access to adequate nutrition and health care,” says Moore. “Even in situations where medicines might be available, the costs can make them prohibitive to patients. Our donated medicines are (and must be) freely distributed.”
‘Exuberance and Humility’
Altrui, Moore adds, is opening up more donations to be used by charities and is doing the work of making sure the pharmaceutical companies’ need for good reporting is satisfied. “I started my humanitarian work at 17, and seeing such highly engaged and passionate young people who want to make a difference in this world has been inspiring,” says Moore. “The humanitarian world can be just as dog-eat-dog as any industry, and most NGOs and PVOs [Private Voluntary Organizations] hold their donors pretty close to the chest. Yet the team from Altrui have been clear in their desire to help and so disarming in their approach. Their combination of exuberance and humility in listening and learning from our experience in humanitarian relief and development is quite rare.”
According to Moore, both pharmaceutical manufacturers and community organizations want and need centralized donations, but other platforms often require compensation in exchange for them. Altrui is committed to remaining entirely free for its network.
Professor Wry clearly sees the business benefits. “When you look at the model and the idea they have, it’s zero risk for these pharmaceutical companies,” he observes. “Altrui can go to a pharmaceutical company and say, ‘Hey, let us take your trash and you will get a reputation bump for it and you don’t have to do anything really.’”
Still, Wry, who is building an entrepreneurship boot camp for the Wharton Global Youth Program, also wonders about the sustainability of this so-far purely social model — and so many others that are flooding entrepreneurship channels these days.
“The worry that I have with some of these ventures, Altrui included, is that these students who want to do well in the world think that is enough to build a sustainable organization, and it’s not,” Wry cautions. “It’s going to do some helpful things for you, but if you’re not systematic about how you go about it, and then more importantly how you go about thinking about the cold, hard dollars and cents part of it, you can end up building something that will never scale or sustain itself. Your commitment to altruism is getting in the way of actually putting a more sustainable profit-maximizing model on the back of it.”
At least in the short-term, Altrui is focused on making smart decisions with the money it does have. “We’ve won a lot of funding from different sources: the Startup Challenge at Penn and also seed funding from Venture Lab’s VIP-Xcelerate, an accelerator program. We are also seed funded by Weiss Fund of the Weiss Tech House,” says Rahul, referring to a student-run innovation center at Penn. “We are working on how to best use that funding to scale Altrui, for better optimizing the platform and for marketing costs.”
What likely began as an experiment to embrace during COVID has gained some serious traction — with a vision for growth. “The constant goal is to bring on as many partners as we can, both manufacturers and organizations,” says Shreya. “We’ve only cut a small piece of the pie of manufacturers, and there are hundreds across the world. We want to scale as quickly as possible.”
Related Links
- Altrui Foundation
- K@W: Collusion over Drug Prices: Will Manufacturers Pay?
- K@W: How Technology Is Changing Health Care in India
- CitiHope Relief & Development
Conversation Starters
What is Altrui Foundation’s business model?
What does Professor Tyler Wry mean when he says, “If you’re not systematic about how you go about it, and then more importantly how you go about thinking about the cold, hard dollars and cents part of it, you can end up building something that will never scale or sustain itself.”
If you could ask Shreya, Rahul and Sourish questions about Altrui Foundation, what would they be? What else would you like to learn about their entrepreneurial process?
For a long time I followed the business beat in New Jersey and wrote articles about one of the state’s most robust industries, pharmaceutical manufacturing. The state is home to something like 15 of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies, including J&J, Bristol-Myers Squibb and Merck. I’m wondering if the Altrui team has knocked on the doors of some of these giant pharmas, as well as how they have been able to persuade other pharmas to engage with their platform. What does it take to convince a multi-million-dollar company or even a smaller drug firm to give back in this way?
As the article suggests, this team of students, led by two high schoolers, has made some serious progress toward their mission in the past year. It’s hard not to feel this is exceptional! I think it is also a testament to how far a group of earnest and ambitious students can take an idea if they devote the necessary time to the effort. If you bring the goods and are serious about what you’re proposing, people will listen. Your age and lack of experience need not be deterrents.
Thank you for your kind words, Ms. Drake! As there are tons of generic pharma manufacturers in the United States, and specifically in New Jersey, our team at Altrui has been relentless in pursuing these opportunities. In order to be able to partner with these companies, I found that it is crucially important to be persistent by following up with your contact points at least almost every other day. I had to understand that in most cases, employees have higher priority tasks and our messages might ‘fall’ to the bottom of their inboxes, and so, a good skill to pick up is understanding how to conscientiously follow up. More so, it is necessary, that in a startup, you offer the value proposition for the clients or partners. In our case, we inform that by working with Altrui, manufacturers would increase their CSR, reduce their storage and destruction of medication costs, receive tax exemptions from the government, and donate their pharmaceuticals through a more streamlined and automated process.
To answer your second point, you should never let your age deter you from achieving your goals and making an impact. A true entrepreneur and social visionary would find a challenge, invent a solution, and face all obstacles in order to make real change. Earlier this year, I spoke with Professor Tyler Wry at Wharton, whose quote, “An entrepreneurial mindset is about embracing a pain point as an opportunity to create novel and productive solutions,” has had a tremendous impact on me. I thank our student-led for how much they worked through this opportunity, and I commend their eagerness in wanting to scale this non-profit.
Thank you Diana for sharing your thoughts! The work of these kids is incredible, particularly in being grounded with social impact. I agree with you on their work being a testament to spending time and effort for something you believe in. I would note that there is a difference between noticing an issue and taking action or implementing a solution for it. The initiative that Rahul and Shreya have taken up has considerable impacts on the communities they are serving, making it true to the mission. They have been able to grow the team to more people passionate to the cause, which is a fundamental pillar to any nonprofit organization. Furthermore, just like you mention that people will listen to you if you are serious about it, that is just what these students have been able to achieve. Having a mission and a vision is important for the sustainability of any organization, and the Altrui Foundation has drilled it down. I agree with you at the whole about the students. Channeling ideas into innovation is needed for any startup, and that ability to turn an idea into a reality for helping society is really what makes this commendable.
Just about 2 months ago I sat down to write my Interdisciplinary Unit (IDU) exam for my IB MYP E-Assessments. The way these IDUs generally work is that they are focused on a topic which can be reasonably linked to 2 subjects and in this case, the topic in focus was healthcare and the subjects responsible for our understanding of the same were English and Science. Over the months prior to this examination we had discussed the successes and failures of healthcare systems, the quality of healthcare worldwide, and the development and usage of drugs around the world. One topic, however, which we had found ourselves continually returning to and debating was that of ‘the insulin crisis’ (which refers to the rising cost of insulin world-wide and the resulting decrease in accessibility of the drug). We spoke about how the cost of a vial of insulin in the United States has risen from $35 to $275 in just the last two decades, about how the 422 million diabetes patients worldwide would be impacted by this rise in insulin price, and about how the 1.6 million deaths attributed to diabetes each year would most likely continue to rise if we do not find a solution to this crisis.
In the practice tests given to us in preparation for this exam we were often asked to come up with a solution to this crisis and when discussing our solutions afterwards, we were generally told that they were too ‘general’ or ‘vague’. Honestly, this frustrated me and many of my classmates because it seemed like we could not find a solution to the grave problem we had been discussing for weeks and months on end. However, after reading about Altrui and their work I am personally much more hopeful that the insulin crisis and other problems much like it which have their roots in the inaccessibility and unaffordability of drugs will soon be addressed.
For this reason, I would like to commend Rahul, Shreya, Sourish and the rest of the team at Altrui for developing something that is undoubtedly impactful during the COVID-19 pandemic but which will also undeniably solve problems that existed well before the pandemic and which will spring up long after it.
After reading this astounding article about Rahul K., Shreya K., and Sourish J creating a business called Altrui, which they have a desire to make a social impact out of it, my view has widened on the whole situation of the whole Altrui team of being successful. This is because any contributes to improving the covid-19 situation is needed. Also, the time and effort being put into this project show the dedication of what they want to accomplish which could result in the outcome being even more fortunate.
Moreover, the Altrui foundations business model pairs manufacturing companies with community organizations to distribute medicines to people in need, supported by technology. In my opinion, this sounds interesting and very high-tech which is good in today’s day and age as everything is more or less revolved around technology. It also shows how much thought the co-workers put into the idea to make it advanced.
The Altrui Foundation diverts short-dated medicines that will be expiring within a year to community organizations rather than having manufacturers destroy them. Shreya stated that $5 billion worth of excess and unused medications go to waste each year. The Altrui Foundation is putting these medicines to better use and decrease the possibility of medication entering the environment. Short-dated medicine is being shipped worldwide, from the former Soviet Republic to Eastern Europe, across Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. Improper disposal of medication can cause it to leach into water systems. Pharmaceutical-related chemicals can end up in waterways and our drinking water. The Altrui Foundation is not only providing people with the medication they need, but they are also lowering the amount that will end up in landfills or sewages. Having the Altrui platform 2L definitely will help with the communication between pharmaceutical manufacturers and charitable organizations.
Having a platform where you can easily communicate with your team greatly increases your efficiency. I use Discord to communicate with my teammates. We are members of a non-profit organization aimed to help students in English Language Arts, Math, and public speaking. Through this platform, we can keep everyone on track and target problems more efficiently. I admire how Shreya, Rahul, and Sourish identified a problem in quarantine and took concrete steps to try their best to resolve it. They distribute the donated medicine to communities experiencing poverty and limited access to health care free of charge. By doing so, they are closing barriers that separate those who have health care and those who don’t, allowing everyone to get the treatment they need regardless of nationality, class, race, and income. The Altrui Foundation is a step to a healthier world where everyone has access to medication.
On Air China’s flights to China, passengers are allowed to bring up to two checked bags, one carry-on item, and one personal item. Because we hadn’t gone back to visit China in a while, my parents took full advantage of these rules, stuffing 11 bags with clothes, luxury items, food, and distinctly “American” goods. Out of the 11 bags we ended up carrying, 4 were suitcases dedicated exclusively to medicine and vitamins for our grandparents. The accumulation of five separate Costco runs was not because the same medication isn’t available in China—it’s just incredibly rare and expensive.
The pressing issue seen in the widespread lack of affordable medication isn’t unique to just China: it’s prevalent everywhere. Thankfully, Altrui stands as a beacon of hope and change in a market stricken with inequality. Rahul, Shreya, and Sourish’s work in securing and donating short-dated medicine for communities in need is largely empowering and inspirational. 100 million bottles of medicine is a staggering statistic that not only goes to show Altrui’s ambition, but also the depth of their impact.
While I do completely commend all Altrui’s work, I reject Altrui’s description of being “simple.” Although the business model of receiving donations and redistributing them isn’t extremely nuanced in the entrepreneurial space, Altrui’s success and growing presence shouldn’t be minimized to such brush-off terms. Taking in consideration that Altrui’s early team was made up of a group of highschool students, attracting the attention of seven pharmaceutical companies, established professors, and CEOs is no easy feat. In fact, it just goes to further exemplify the complexity and thoroughness of the team’s thinking and planning. Just because the business model itself isn’t inherently more complex than the next, it doesn’t not merit credit to all the success and support the team has garnered.
In addition, I want to echo the words of Professor Wry on the sustainability of altruistic entrepreneurship, where “It’s going to do some helpful things for you, but… [without] thinking about the cold, hard dollars and cents part of it, you can end up building something that will never scale or sustain itself.” Even for an entrepreneurship team like Altrui, one that has had so much success and support, whether that be college professors, leading CEOs, or numerous scholarships, without profit, Altrui is not sustainable. Personally, I think that speaks volumes about the privilege that is needed to even consider entrepreneurship. Yet, entrepreneurship is constantly portrayed in society as being open to anyone, allowing just anyone to complete the rags to riches American dream, promising a false reality of support when not everyone is privileged enough to pursue such a path and take such risks. It presents a rather unfortunate truth—entrepreneurship isn’t for everyone; it is a bleak dream inaccessible for most. What might be a major risk for a single mother in a low-income community might not even be considered a blink of an eye for the Ivy League-educated entrepreneur from an economically privileged background. My point is: the fluid portrayal of entrepreneurship as a path that pertains to virtually everyone is a major oversimplification of entrepreneurship. It’s about time that we recognize the parallels between entrepreneurship and privilege to better respond to the injustices that it presents.
Ultimately, Altrui is an extremely promising approach to confront the needs of the pharmaceutical industry. However, if Altrui hopes to pave the way for a more sustainable market of medicine, it is absolutely necessary for them to respond to Professor Wry’s concerns. Luckily, Altrui’s altruistic approach to entrepreneurship allows them to further gain support and engagement from the public. Even though there will likely still be bottles of medicine and vitamins in my suitcases for China in the near future, I have no doubts that Altrui will continue to flourish and innovate, spearheading a more inclusive industry of medication.
In a generation where high-value tech startups emerge from seemingly nowhere, and when capitalist superstars such as Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos exist, it’s easy to lose sight of who and what a “successful entrepreneur” is.
Rahul and Shreya’s journey is a fresh reminder of what it means to be a successful entrepreneur. In my eyes, a successful entrepreneur is someone who can sustainably deliver to the masses a solution to a problem that raises the quality of life. In Rahul and Shreya’s case, they aimed to solve two problems. The excess medication dilemma and the healthcare inequity issue.
The disposing of unwanted medicines costs millions of dollars per year, with medication destruction costing $1-3 per pound. The frustrating part of this is that these short-dated or excess medicines are just as high quality and effective as when they first came out of the lab. Considering the current paradoxical state of the US healthcare system with more and more people unable to have access to life-saving drugs despite the US leading in pharmaceutical innovation, it is depressing to see these excess drugs go to waste when they could be saving lives. This is where Altrui comes in. Altrui provides an easy-to-use one-stop-shop web interface that connects pharmaceutical manufacturers with charitable organizations. Manufacturers would upload to the platform what drugs they have available for donation and can either choose what charities they want to donate to or make their drugs available to all. While this may not seem all that innovative, Rahul and Shreya’s simple yet ingenious idea has solved both the excess medication dilemma and the health inequity issue by standardizing the process of medication donation. Manufacturers no longer have to worry about legal terms and conditions when donating and charities no longer have to worry about getting replies from manufacturers. This simplified method of communication helps avoid long extensive back-and-forth emails where things could easily get lost. Altrui’s platform opens the doors between manufacturers and charities allowing more charities being able to connect to manufacturers and vice versa, thus redirecting the flow of excess drugs from landfills into the hands of those who need them most.
I applaud Rahul and Shreya’s efforts to create a nonprofit during the pandemic, especially when entrepreneurship has become less accessible to the general public, much less high school students. I commend Rahul and Shreya’s passion and motivation for social impact that allowed them to stay true to their mission to deliver millions of dollars of drugs into the right hands. I can’t imagine how difficult it must be to manage a team of 25 plus people and reach out to dozens of charities and drug manufacturers. I love how Rahul and Shreya didn’t overthink their solution to the excess drug problem and that they didn’t try to be innovative for the sake of being innovative. They saw a simple yet effective solution, with technology acting as the middleman between drug manufacturers and charities, and ran with it. Rahul and Shreya prioritized the social impact of Altrui over anything, which allowed them to expand and reach out to more charities and manufacturers. They weren’t title-chasing for “Most Innovative Startup of 2020”, but instead were more focused on being the more effective startup/nonprofit. After reading this article, Rahul and Shreya definitely shifted my definition of a “successful entrepreneur”. My definition of a “successful entrepreneur” shifted from someone who can “take the high road” and “grind it out”, to someone who can do both of those things while being able to change the world for the better and deliver social impact.
I am so glad that KWHS decided to do an article on Altrui because startups/nonprofits like these don’t get nearly the praise and publicity they deserve. Rahul and Shreya’s story is something that everyone should read, as their story serves as a template to how having a genuine desire to help and make a difference in the world can make anything possible. Rahul and Shreya are paving the way for a new wave of entrepreneurs. A generation where vision, initiative, and passion are used to create a better present and future.
Your comment, Vincent, really shines amongst the rest because of how you recognize the practicality of the Altrui Foundation and are willing to add onto the conversation to spread awareness. I just have a few more things I want to add!
What was the most bothersome about conversations about healthcare is often the polarizing opinions on what to do about its current status in America. With no one agreeing to a unified cause in the senate for pharmaceutical reform, and the enduring legislation that seemingly pushes against many great suggestions proposed, the many attempts for change die down with no progress made. However, Altrui Foundation is one that I found hard to see any polarizing opinions as, pointed out by Vincent’s comment, the novel approach is a fresh and elegant way of dealing with inefficient practices that can aid in providing life-saving drugs for individuals. As Vincent said, the status of healthcare is in a paradoxical position as America is ranked as one of the top innovators in medicine (6th in fact as of 2021) yet there has been little effort internally to solve the expensive healthcare system we are stuck with. Just recently, though, Mark Cuban, a billionaire star on the TV show Shark Tank, collaborated with a radiologist named Alex Oshmyansky to create Cost Plus Drug, a pharmaceutical store aiming to sell cheaper drugs than other pharmacies. This, along with the Altrui Foundation, makes me hopeful of the possibility of progress.
However, we have to address the giant elephant in the room. Although I think Vincent wrote an excellent response to the article, I felt there were missing elements that needed to be addressed. Both Altrui and Mark Cuban’s efforts have eliminated the flies, but the rotting body attracting such flies still remains to be a problem to be addressed. When researching why American healthcare is such a mess, it is not hard to point fingers around at many of the processes that lead up to the upfront prices. For example, according to “Mark Cuban won’t fix our drug pricing problem” by Peter Neumann, Joshua Cohen and Daniel Ollendorf, of the approximate 500 billion US dollars spent annually on drugs (yes, 500 and yes, billion), 20% are from generic drugs, and 80% (yes, 80 percent) are from brand-name drugs. These statistics raise a glaring problem with allowing drug developers to hold exclusivity with these brand-name drugs, essentially closing off most prospects of competition. And since the FDA provides “patent and exclusivity” protection that lasts for around 20 years, the producers would raise the price of the drugs so that when the patent ends which allows generics to enter into the market, the brand-name companies would have made profit. After all, what is the patient going to do? Not buy the drug? A 2016 study found that the pricing of these prescription drugs is based on what the market will bear. Of course, it makes total sense that these producers need to see some kind of compensation for the years of arduous research and wait for the patent, but this exact compensation is exacerbating the problem of people not being able to afford the medicine that they may need. In fact, according to the same study mentioned before, in 2013, the American per capita on prescription drugs was $858 compared with other 19 industrialized countries average of $400.
Back to my point, Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug currently focuses on generic drugs with generally high pricing, older drugs that do not have a patent, and drugs in smaller markets with little competition. And for Altrui Foundation, in a comment above, Rahul Kavuru, the CEO of the venture, replied by saying that the team at Altrui looks for opportunities specifically at generic pharmaceutical manufacturers. Both initiatives were unable to address the relevant problem of brand-name drugs – so where do we go from here? No matter what, — are still very important steps forward. After all, they shed more light onto the pharmaceutical industry for the wider audience to see and maybe from viewing the works these two companies are doing, another entrepreneur would take another step. For now, it does seem like Cost Plus Drug is also trying to fit brand-name drugs into its stores so only time will tell when the brand-name drugs won’t be as much of a burden to patients. This means that we are facing the pivotal point in which we may be able to see a reduction in drug expenses, but that can only be a reality if we are motivated to continue pushing for change. I can’t wait to see the tipping of the balance.
Reading this article, and seeing the successes of Altrui really inspired me. The founder’s idea of this non-profit organization was truly innovative and helpful to society. Coming from a country where I know that so many people don’t have feasible or adequate access to quality Medicare, I feel that the distribution of medicine is something that was necessary especially with the pandemic. After reading dozens of articles and web pages on the topic of medicines and pharmaceutical science, it took me some time to realize how flawed, the distribution of medicine from manufacturing companies are. The statistic of “$5millon” worth of useable medicine that is disposed off on a daily basis by these companies was very shocking.
Alturi’s motives to partner with big pharmaceutical manufacturers such as Aurobindo Pharma, Ingenus Pharmaceuticals and Camber led to its successful beginning. I believed it built the foundation for the project itself. Alturi has shown that to build a business, communication and partnership is important; and to me it is one of the reasons that they were able to establish trade of medicine to across 7 different countries. The project is very sustainable too, and will help countries even after the pandemic too. Not only did this article seemingly grow my interest about how to start a business but it made me realize that certain non-profit programs profit off the thought that they are helping people. That is what truly inspired me about Altrui.
I applaud this altruistic team at Altrui Foundation. Their compassionate dedication and innovative entrepreneurship inspires me. COVID or no COVID, they are providing a much needed service; they are turning potential waste into added value and health. In terms of operations, I wonder if there is a need for a “just in time” model so that even within these community organizations, the donated medications do not go to potential waste if organizations overestimate their need of supplies. In addition, Alturi can consider targeting generic or biosimilar drugs in case manufacturers are more likely to part with these types of medications as compared to name brand ones. Lastly, another idea is to look for samples that often thrown away at doctors’ offices. I have no doubt that Alturi has already improved upon their streamlined system since this article was published. Keep up the amazing work!
Reading this makes me think about how amazing people are, like Rahul K., Shreya K., and Sourish J. They have made a huge impact on the health economy, They made a business and helped a lot of people. I am amazed by their business the Altrui Foundation, Their compassion, dedication, kindness, and innovative act give me a whole perspective on people. I’d see them as an angel descended by God to help people, their help over the current pandemic had changed people’s lives. Either it’s Covid or no Covid, they’d always help people. I am very grateful for them, sometimes it makes me ask myself “how’d they just make Covid-19 less threatening?”. All thanks to them for making the world a better place, Keep up the good work to the Altrui Foundation, Rahul K., Shreya K., and Sourish J.
What the Altrui Foundation has achieved for the healthcare industry is commendable; not only did it launch a startup in the middle of the pandemic, but it has bridged the gap between people in need and people who can meet those needs. While the idea of drug repository programs is not new, its simplistic approach of using spreadsheets to solve such a complicated issue within the healthcare industry has the potential to expand across the United States and even on an international level.
This aspect would be great news for every party involved, as it would mean less waste and even more medicine getting distributed within communities that cannot afford it. Pharmaceutical companies reduce their inventory costs and get tax deductions from the government by contributing to the nonprofit. The money saved from inventory costs, could then in turn, be redirected to improving current medicine. Not to mention, that by being associated with charitable organisations, pharmaceutical companies get free advertising for their products. Altrui’s business model provides clear benefits for both parties involved, however, as noted by professor Wry’s concerns over its sustainability, the startup does not benefit itself economically.
Currently, Altrui receives its funding to operate from numerous startup funds, which limits the nonprofit in terms of its expandability. Funding can run out quickly and may not always be available for Altrui. What if a new startup comes in and needs more funding than Altrui; what then? In the advent of such situations happening, the nonprofit should diversify its sources of revenue. In my view, the nonprofit would benefit from private donations as it would enable it to fund headquarters across the country. However, this method would only work if it first establishes itself as a prominent actor within charitable organisations. What would work in this case, would be a strong online presence, which means a promotional campaign on social media.By doing so, the nonprofit would be able to raise awareness of its goals and garner public support. This method should not be a problem considering that the majority of the team consists of teens and young adults who, I assume, can tap into the interests of social media users and run a successful promotional campaign. As a consequence, the nonprofit would be able to market itself to more pharmaceutical companies and charities, leading to more partnerships being formed.
Furthermore, a distinct feature that separates Altrui from other charity organisations is that it bolsters a young demographic, which would appeal to pharmaceutical companies looking to advertise itself to a younger generation. Thus, creating a cycle in which the promotion of one pharmaceutical company would lead other companies to join in as well. Nonetheless, this idea is not efficient short term, as it takes time to create a social media presence and garner public support. Even so, the plan can be viewed as an alternative for the future, as it enables the organisation to become more financially independent and increase its scale of operations.
im amazed how they have made a huge impact on the health. I applaud Rahul and Shreya’s efforts to create a nonprofit during the pandemic, especially when entrepreneurship has become less accessible to the general public, much less high school students. and im amazed how they are turning potential waste into added value and health
Surrounding walls. Home. Tediousness. Exhaustion. These are a few words that many of us were commonly familiar with during the pandemic. Inevitably, I guess, to feel limited in such conditions when you are isolated from the outside world. Many opportunities beyond the walls of the home were available but weren’t reachable. “Was it because of the walls of the home, or was it just because of the walls that our minds built?” I did not understand at first when my grandpa asked me this question. Ridiculous, I thought, expecting a cook to make delicious meals without giving them the ingredients. Shreya and Rahul K. showed me, however, what was actually ridiculous was waiting for the ingredients to cook themselves…
If you lack ingredients, create your own ingredients. Knowing what you want to cook is the key point, not the ingredients. And your determination guides you on how to create them.
Take Shreya and Rahul K. into consideration, for example. Regardless of experiencing the pandemic or being high school students, they held onto their dreams. They wanted to make an impact on humans’ lives. And they did it. What was their secret behind it? Affluence? Strong connections? Neither. It was having a broad perspective toward their goals. And creativity was what broadened their perspectives.
As a high school student passionate about biology, learning about Shreya and Rahul K. ‘s story inspired me and what is the mystery behind success. You are the person determining whether the circumstances you face are a crisis or an opportunity, and you make the opportunities sustainable by “your commitment to altruism,” like Professor Wry mentioned.
Living in the developing nation of Turkey, every corner I turn I see opportunities and gaps to fill and it is young people like myself who are ready to harness their talents and visions to create an equitable society. Unleashing empathy and learning to listen to others using a bit of “exuberance and humility” sows the seeds for development to germinate.
Now I’m understanding the question that my grandfather asked. Thank you, Shreya and Rahul. Thank you, Grandpa.
I believe that the concept behind this health care startup has many benefits. To maximize the positive impacts of this ingenious healthcare startup, I suggest implementing artificial intelligence (AI) diagnostics. This business idea focuses on supplying short dated medicines to community organizations. While this will expand the access to various types of medicines, it is important to identify the most effective treatments. By implementing this idea, this startup could not only benefit communities, but also benefit the world.
To begin with, I strongly agree with this article which states that “It’s a clever solution to a problem they saw with these orphan medicines not being able to find good homes and being destroyed instead of being put to good use” (Wry). In addition to providing communities with better health related opportunities, this startup allows companies to distribute more of their products. This helps companies gain recognition and credibility. Additionally, this startup addresses the issue of waste generated by disposing unused medication. Furthermore, AI diagnostics would reduce human errors. This software would also ensure that each person receives the appropriate medicine tailored to their needs, supported by extensive data. As a technological software, this addition would enable communities that do not have professional healthcare to still receive appropriate care.
To implement this technology, this startup could partner with AI developers and software engineers to create a diagnostics platform. Although developing this software is expensive, participating in entrepreneurial competitions and pitching to investors could secure the required funding. Furthermore, partnering with other pharmaceutical companies could benefit both the startup and the partnering companies. To put this into action, this startup could integrate the technology into an easy-to-use app. The introduction of this software could help them achieve their goals and boost their impact.
Finally, by incorporating AI diagnostics to their business plan, this business could impact millions of communities around the world. By innovating in this sector, this startup could expand to many different countries and could revolutionize how medication is distributed. In addition to distributing short shelf life medication, this startup has the potential to offer effective treatment, substantially impacting people’s lives around the world.
Reading articles about my fellow high school students who notice a problem and are brave enough to take initiative and try and fix it not only encourages me to step out and take initiative as well, but also fills me with hope for the future!
Altrui’s mission of providing people with free, safe and highly needed medication, while simultaneously making our world a safer and cleaner place is simply amazing! And although they have already accomplished so much, I believe they could accomplish even more if they focus on these two areas: funding and expansion.
Getting fundings for NGOs isn’t an easy feat(as someone trying to start an NGO as well, I would know!), but nevertheless it is possible. I think they would greatly benefit from reaching out to people and organizations who are interested in healthcare as well as Green Earth projects e.g the local governor or mayor.
In support of Shreya’s statement “We’ve only cut a small piece of the pie of manufacturers, and there are hundreds across the world. We want to scale as quickly as possible.”, I believe the Altrui Foundation could achieve this by going international. There are so many people out there who share similar passions and goals and would be honored to have the opportunity of making such positive impacts in their communities! In addition global expansion would provide access to a multitudinous pool of manufacturers, partners and even donors! Providing an opportunity for not just positive global impact but an avenue for sustainability as well( alleviating Professor Wry’s important concerns).
I am really excited to see how the Altrui Foundation grows and brightens the future!
Every year, the US produces a shocking $5.4 billion amount of medical waste. That’s almost 5.9 million tons of waste EVERY YEAR. Not only that, statistics say that about 98% of these medicinal supplies are thrown away because of expiration. Along these lines, I would first like to express my gratitude to Altrui for mitigating – if not solving – this problem. Healthcare and shortage of medicine is a problem all countries face, and supplying them to voluntary organizations and people who need them was a great idea. However, I do think that Altrui’s solution still has a lot to go in terms of scale and efficiency.
When I read about Altrui, the main problem that I instantly spotted was its reliance on donations. Like many other NGOs, Altrui depends almost 100% on donations from outside sources to fund its volunteer work. While this might be enough for now, there are mainly two problems with this. First of all, the donations will not last forever. The more areas Altrui starts shipping medicine to, the more costs it will incur. Eventually, the donations that you’re getting now are not going to be sufficient to sustain the affordable prices. Second of all – and this relates to the first problem: the donations aren’t going to be enough to manage all of the expiring medicine the company has. All of the medications that Altrui can’t donate to other charities are going to be thrown away again. This will result in huge amounts of environmental damage around the area. Those medicinal supplies are all just toxic chemicals that will do nothing but destruction in the ecosystem. This is why you need a sustainable profit source. It will hold up the expenses needed for shipping even in times when there’s less donations coming in. This is why I’m suggesting an online application for Altrui.
Where I live, in South Korea, there’s been an enormous societal boom with online second hand markets. Karrot Market, the most popular online second-hand market application in Korea, has an astounding 36 million users in all of Korea – that’s roughly 70% of the South Korean population. Right now, Altrui uses excel spreadsheets to keep track of medicine being donated and received, which is bound to be highly inefficient for large scale transactions. With a mobile application, it will be much easier for companies to donate almost-expired medicine to charity, not to mention potential for optimizing the shipping process. On top of that, I suggest publicizing the app to individual consumers as well. As we all know, unaffordable healthcare and medicine is a big problem in America, and a part of this is that citizens do not have necessary medication at their disposal. Publicizing this application will make it so that companies can donate – or sell with a cheaper price – their almost-expired medicine to normal US citizens as well, not just to charity. The quality or effect of the medicinal products don’t decrease even if they’re close to their expiry dates, so it’s a win-win for everyone. Also, we can ask town pharmacies and citizens to trade medicine with each other, helping the circulation of medicine in general.
All of this, in turn, will create a sustainable profit source that Altrui can use in order to ship medicine to more parts of America. In addition, it can even expand to other continents as well using the profit from the mobile app. There are millions of people around the world who are dying due to a lack of medicine, while unused medicine worth billions of dollars are being thrown away each year around the globe – especially in areas like Africa, India, or China. An article from the National Library of Medicine notes that according to their research, more than 8 million people are dying each year due to a lack of high-quality healthcare (Kruk et al, 2018). These are unimaginable numbers, and we still have a lot to go in order to lessen these unneeded deaths.
In conclusion, while I think that Altrui is doing an amazing job at the moment, I believe that they will need a sustainable profit source to cover them for their future costs. I suggest a mobile app directed not only to the usual companies and charities, but also to everyday citizens and town pharmacies of America. This will increase the revenue that Altrui can reinvest on their donations, at the same time allowing them to expand to other continents that might be in more dire situations than America. I strongly believe that this will dramatically reduce sacrifices all across the globe. We still have a lot to go, but we will reach a future where everyone in the world can receive proper healthcare and medicine.