India Gets Its First-Ever, Comprehensive, Most Impactful Breast Cancer Program

New Delhi: With breast cancer on the rise and 1 in 8 Indian women at risk, a landmark initiative blends knowledge, self-advocacy, and risk assessment to transform how India faces its most common women's cancer.

After winning international recognition for pioneering a breast cancer awareness program in South Africa, Phylaxis.ai® now brings an enhanced empowerment model to India - combining awareness and risk assessment for the first time.

The Global and Indian Challenge: Why Empowerment Matters?

Lack of medically correct awareness and not being conscious of an individual's risk profile are the leading causes of late-detection breast cancer.

Breast cancer has become the most common cancer among women in India, with more than 200,000 new cases every year, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). Behind this number lies an even more troubling reality: over 60% of these cases are diagnosed in late stages, when survival rates drop dramatically, treatment options are limited, and healthcare costs soar.

Global data consistently shows that early detection can improve survival rates by up to 90% and reduce treatment costs by as much as 70%. Yet in India, delayed diagnosis continues to be the norm, fuelled by limited awareness, social stigma, and insufficient access to screening.

A First-of-Its-Kind Program for India

If someone told you that a ten-minute digital assessment could potentially save millions of lives, you'd probably think they were overselling it. But sometimes, the most impactful solutions really are that simple.

The Phylaxis.ai® platform offers a solution to the challenges of breast cancer awareness and prevention in India. As the first-of-its-kind comprehensive online assessment, it empowers individuals with personalised knowledge, breaking down barriers to care and facilitating early detection.

Unlike traditional awareness campaigns, Phylaxis.ai® leverages a data-driven approach to provide targeted education and address specific knowledge gaps, ensuring maximum impact. By combining accessibility, affordability, and cutting-edge innovation, this program represents a significant step forward in the fight against breast cancer, empowering women across the country to take control of their health.

How the Program Works

The program works through two key components:

• Phylaxis Risk Index®: A personalised assessment that helps women understand their individual vulnerability to breast cancer.

• Phylaxis Awareness Index®: A structured evaluation of an individual's knowledge of breast cancer risk factors, symptoms, screening, and examination for early detection and prevention.

The following form the core aspects that define the program and its impact:

• Personalised Assessment: Through an easy-to-use digital tool, participants answer questions about their breast cancer risk, knowledge and receive personalised reports highlighting risk and gaps in understanding.

• Call to Action: The report provides recommendations for the need and frequency of Breast Self-Exam, Clinical Breast Examination and Mammogram Screening.

• Rewards and Incentives: The platform is scientifically designed to promote seeking behaviour by offering rewards and incentives for positive health behaviour.

• Empowerment: The report provides educational content tailored to each individual's needs, helping close knowledge gaps, clarifying myths and facts, and encouraging early screening behaviours.

• Data-Driven Insights: Phylaxis.ai® not only helps individuals but also provides valuable data insights for institutions to identify patterns of risk, awareness and gaps in the healthcare system, enabling them to define high-yield targeted interventions.

What Does This Mean for Indian Women?

The South Africa experience showed that technology-driven healthcare interventions can work at scale. The program there was designed to "break barriers in healthcare and breast cancer awareness" and ensure "more South African women, particularly in underserved regions, have access to critical early-detection and prevention resources that can save lives."

India's version takes this proven model and adds the crucial element of risk assessment, creating a comprehensive empowerment tool that goes beyond just education to actual risk evaluation and personalized guidance.

• A woman who starts doing monthly self-exams after taking this assessment has a higher chance of detecting a lump months or years earlier.

• A high-risk woman referred for early screening could receive life-saving treatment at Stage 1 instead of Stage 3.

From South Africa to India: Tracing the Journey of Innovation

The story begins in South Africa in Oct 2024. In a significant step toward tackling breast cancer literacy and disparities in South Africa, Phithos Technologies – in partnership with the Breast Health Foundation (BHF) –launched the world's first-ever comprehensive Breast Cancer Awareness Program using the innovative health-tech platform, Phylaxis.ai®

This pioneering initiative – supported by Novartis and recognised by the Alliance and Partnerships for Patient Innovation and Solutions (APPIS) as one of the top three winners of their 2024 Innovator Program transformed breast cancer awareness, screening and intervention across the country.

Prof. Carol-Ann Benn, a renowned surgeon, top breast cancer specialist in South Africa, and the head of The Breast Care Centre of Excellence (BCCE), herself did the assessment and quoted "Absolutely the most amazing thing that Breast Health Foundation has come up with, it is a wonder. The only concern is that I only got 76% and not 100%, which goes to show that we all can learn something about breast health, what we need to check for, and I encourage everyone to use the assessment tool".

The results in South Africa were encouraging: thousands of women accessed accurate information in their own languages, communities began confronting stigma more directly, and patient navigators bridged gaps between women and health facilities.

India's program picks up where South Africa's left off. Drawing inspiration from the South African model but adapted to India's unique challenges of scale, diversity, and access.

Phylaxis.ai®: Driving Innovation in Women's Health

With a world-class research and innovation team of medical doctors and data scientists from Oxford, India, and South Africa, Phylaxis.ai® is committed to the process of continuous innovation and technological evolution to deliver affordable and quality healthcare services.

The vision is clear: "Reducing National Disease Burden and Associated Costs of Breast Cancer" by progressively improving early detection and prevention.

This commitment is not just medical-it is social and economic. With India spending billions annually on cancer care, Phylaxis.ai® is demonstrating how preventative healthcare can create long-term savings while saving lives.

Changing the Economics of Cancer Care

Beyond lives saved, the program has enormous implications for healthcare economics. According to the WHO, early detection reduces treatment costs by up to 70%. In India, where late-stage treatments often involve expensive chemotherapy, radiation, and hospital stays, the potential savings are enormous.

Consider this: if even 10% of late-stage cases shift to early-stage detection because of this program, it could save the country hundreds of crores annually—money that can be reinvested into prevention, infrastructure, and training.

By combining awareness with actionable risk data, Phylaxis.ai® is positioning itself not just as a health innovator but also as a driver of healthcare reform.

A Paradigm Shift in Personalised, Prospective, and Preventive Healthcare

As Dr Bradley Max Segal, Chief Health AI Officer at Phylaxis.ai®, explains, this initiative has the potential to reshape healthcare: "By leveraging personalised assessments, we're able to deliver targeted educational content that addresses each individual's specific knowledge gaps. This approach has the potential to significantly improve early-detection rates and breast health outcomes while providing insights into overall patterns of risk and awareness to help define high-yield targeted interventions and effective programs & policy updates."

Lovkesh Arora, Co-Founder Phylaxis.ai®, emphasised,  Access to contextualised and personalised health information is fundamental to promoting better health at all levels of the socio-ecological hierarchy. We view this as an essential component of quality healthcare services, aligning with the 'Right to Health' principle.

Conclusion

The launch of India's first Breast Cancer Risk & Awareness Program marks a revolutionary step in healthcare. By combining risk assessment, awareness tracking, and commitment to Phylaxis.ai® for inclusivity and innovation, the initiative delivers a comprehensive model that could save countless lives.

As the pilot results show, change is already underway. Women are acting earlier, high-risk cases are being identified sooner, and conversations are becoming more data-driven. With continued expansion, this ten-minute assessment may very well become the defining tool in India's fight against breast cancer.

An assessment that takes just minutes could save millions, and with Phylaxis.ai® leading the way, it might just change the future of women's health in India.