Articles Equality

Reaching the 52% left behind by health system

India, Indonesia, Kenya, South Africa

reach52 addresses the fact that over half the world lacks essential health services and 30% lack medicine access. In 2024, its sustainable model served 5 million underserved people in India, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

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Edward Booty

CEO @ reach52

See profile

Posted 06/10/2025

Challenge

Across Asia and Africa, billions remain cut off from essential healthcare. Globally, over 52 per cent of people lack access to essential health services, while 30 per cent are without essential medicines. The consequences are devastating: treatable conditions go unmanaged, preventable illnesses become fatal, and families fall into cycles of debt and poverty.

In countries such as India, Indonesia, and across Africa, rural and peri-urban communities face the sharpest barriers. Clinics are too far, medicines are too expensive or not even available, and public health information is uneven at best. Governments continue to expand Universal Health Coverage (UHC), but the gap between policy and reality remains wide.

Solution

reach52 was founded on the belief that equitable healthcare is achievable if approaches are redesigned for underserved markets. Its model is built on two reinforcing pillars: Impact and Access. Impact delivers public health campaigns, community education, and health-worker upskilling, ensuring that people know when and how to seek care. Access focuses on registering and distributing affordable medicines through pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics in ‘tier-2,’ and below communities.

The model is sustainable by design. Margins from medicine sales fund the Impact work, while the education and outreach campaigns generate awareness and demand for the Access products. This creates a closed loop where social good and commercial viability enable each other, building markets where traditional pharmaceutical models see only barriers.

In 2024 alone, reach52 organised 99,343 Health Education events, 2,255 health camps (essential free clinics), and conducted 1:1 engagements through targeted Impact campaigns, reaching more than 5 million people with information and screening on topics ranging from non-communicable disease prevention and immunisation to maternal health.

Impact

These efforts were supported by over 38,000 Community Health Workers and aligned to state-level government health priorities.

On the Access side, reach52 has built a strong presence in India and is expanding across 15 markets in Africa, making products available to over 25,000 pharmacies and clinics through 400+ distribution partnerships.

The impact goes beyond metrics. For rural families, it means a child can receive antibiotics without a costly journey to the city. For a farmer with hypertension, it means medicine is priced within reach. And for governments, it means stronger enablement of universal health coverage targets, powered by private innovation that complements public systems.

Future outlook

By 2025, reach52 aims to expand its portfolio to 80 essential medicines and reach five million beneficiaries through health campaigns and camps. Pilots in India, Southeast Asia, and Africa will introduce five to 10 new public health campaigns and new essential products each year, further closing gaps in access. Longer term, the organisation has set an ambitious goal: to improve 50 million lives by the end of 2029 with affordable medicines, health information, and services.

To get there, beyond the core operations, reach52 is investing in governance, quality, compliance, and technology operations too. A new digital platform is being rolled out to track impact, supply chain, and health worker engagement in real time, strengthening monitoring and operational efficiency.

Ultimately, reach52 is showing that inclusive healthcare is not just an aspiration but a viable business model. By proving that serving those at the margins can be sustainable, it is pushing the healthcare sector closer to equity, one community at a time.

reach52 is a health innovator with the mission to redesign healthcare to reach 52% of the world without access to essential healthcare products and services.

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Equality Climate Change Governance Sustainability Steward Leadership

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