Exclusive: DavaNinja Unveils Smart Health Push: Integrating AI, Local Pharmacies & Fitness Tech for Connected Care

Exclusive Interview with the Founder of DavaNinja, on how they’re blending local pharmacy networks, quick delivery, and preventive healthtech to reshape India’s digital health ecosystem.

India’s quick-commerce landscape is witnessing a unique evolution, one where speed meets safety, and convenience meets care. Leading this shift is DavaNinja, a rapidly growing healthtech startup that is expanding beyond medicine delivery into preventive health, fitness devices, and obesity care.

The startup is now fusing its 60-minute pharmacy network with AI-driven insights and connected wellness tools, aiming to make healthcare delivery as intelligent as it is instant.

In an exclusive conversation with Nikita Saha, Editorial Manager, Digital Health News, Gaurav Lekhrajani, Co-founder and CEO of DavaNinja, shares how the company is blending local pharmacy intelligence with advanced technology to build a seamless preventive and delivery-driven healthcare model.

DavaNinja promises medicine delivery in under 60 minutes. In the current “quick-commerce

race,” how do you balance speed with safety and accuracy, especially when dealing with critical

medications?

Our promise of delivery within 60 minutes isn’t just about being fast, it’s built on a process designed

for reliability and safety. Every step has been thought through. Because we work with licensed local

pharmacists, there is accountability built into the system, they know their patients, their history, and

take their role in dispensing medicines seriously. We’ve added multiple checks so that nothing slips

through the cracks. In healthcare, the real risk isn’t that things move too quickly, it’s when care is

delayed. Technology for us is not about chasing efficiency alone, it’s about enabling precision and

making sure quality is never compromised.

Unlike other e-pharmacies, you’ve chosen to partner with local pharmacies instead of building a

centralized supply chain. Why did you take this route, and what advantages or challenges come

with it?

Local chemists are at the heart of communities. They know their patients well, understand their needs,

and in many cases have built long-standing personal connections that inspire loyalty. The challenge, of

course, is integration; every pharmacy has its own systems and ways of working, and if you don’t

manage that properly, it can lead to chaos. What we’ve done is build technology that bridges those

differences and creates one seamless experience for the customer, while still keeping the local

pharmacist at the center.

With competition in online pharmacy intensifying, what makes DavaNinja’s tech + local-first

model stand out from giants in this space?

The online pharmacy space is becoming extremely competitive, with players fighting on discounts,

scale, or logistics speed. But what we’ve built is different. Our technology platform is efficient because

it can aggregate orders, enable real-time routing, and fully track orders from start to finish, bringing

transparency and accountability into the system. While others are competing in the same race, our

approach is creating a shift in the category itself.

You’ve just launched fitness devices as part of your preventive health push. What drove the

decision to move beyond medicine delivery into wellness hardware?

Healthcare shouldn’t just be about treatment; it should also help people prevent illness altogether.

That thinking led us to branch into preventive health through fitness devices. Customers who use

these devices are not simply collecting data for the sake of it. They’re engaging with products that

trigger interventions, encourage lifestyle changes, and help lower the risk of long-term illness. It’s

about moving from reactive healthcare to proactive wellness.

With the rise of 10-minute grocery and pharmacy deliveries, there’s debate on whether

convenience is compromising quality. What’s your take is “healthcare quick commerce”

sustainable without trade-offs?

There’s often a debate about whether quick commerce and healthcare should mix.

For us, the answer lies in the process we’ve built. Every order is validated against a prescription, checked again by a pharmacist, and only then moved to last-mile delivery. Each step is designed to keep quality as the priority.

Convenience should not distract from healthcare; it should enhance the experience. Patients should feel both reassured and supported, not just served quickly.

What’s the next frontier - teleconsultations, diagnostics, or deeper healthtech integrations?

Our journey has been one of evolution. We started as a price comparison platform to help people find

the best value for medicines, and today we’ve grown into a delivery and logistics company that also

integrates preventive health products. Mumbai was our test case, it’s one of the toughest

environments because of the traffic, density, and unpredictable demand. Having validated our model

here, we now know it can be scaled to other cities with confidence. Looking ahead, we’re building a

future where your fitness device connects to your medicine delivery, your teleconsultation guides

your preventive steps, and everything is integrated into one seamless platform.

How do you ensure the medicines delivered, especially with fast timelines, are genuine,

temperature-controlled, and compliant with regulations?

When dealing with medicines, there is no margin for error. At DavaNinja, compliance is not an

afterthought; it is built into every step we take. All medicines supplied through DavaNinja are from

duly licensed pharmacies that are rigorously approved and routinely audited as part of the ongoing

partnership. This means that every pharmacy with which we partner is held to the highest levels of

care and quality. Our focus goes beyond sourcing. Our rules and procedures regarding warehousing

and transportation are strict, and medicines that require special temperatures are monitored and

managed accordingly to ensure proper handling through to the delivery moment. Our logistics

framework is set up for medicine integrity, and we have protections to confirm the validity of each

delivery. We overlay pharmacist checks with technology checks to establish confirmation and

authenticity at scale. We do not regard regulatory compliance as a minimum threshold, but rather as

our baseline level we consistently exceed. For sensitive categories, we provide enhanced layers of

verification and handling to ensure patient safety is never compromised. In healthcare, trust is earned

by consistency and accountability with patients; that is why we built our model to be transparent,

auditable, and patient-first to the fullest extent possible.

Are you seeing a shift in consumer demand from reactive (buying medicines) to proactive

(fitness, obesity care, wellness plans)?

The shift from reactive to proactive healthcare isn’t just a trend, it’s becoming the new standard that

patients expect. People are no longer content with only buying medicines when they fall sick. They

want to actively invest in their long-term health and well-being. That’s why we’re building solutions

that don’t just respond to illness, but actually help prevent it, making patients active partners in their

own care.

The online pharmacy space has faced regulatory uncertainty in India. How is DavaNinja

preparing for stricter compliance frameworks, especially with sensitive categories like GLP-1?

The Indian online pharmacy industry has been pillaged by waves of regulatory uncertainty, but

compliance is not a stumbling block for us at DavaNinja, but a responsibility. Regulations are more of a

baseline, not a boundary. Each process—pharmacy onboarding and auditing, temperature-controlled

supply chain, and prescription verification—is designed to be greater than compliant. We recognize

that for high-risk classes of drugs such as GLP-1 or other specialty drugs, there's more risk involved.

That's why we've implemented extra safeguards, extra verification and handling processes for those

drugs. Our organization is set up in a way that nothing falls through the cracks, no matter how quickly

we expand. Significantly, we are always open to regulators and industry players so our procedures

keep pace with changing frameworks in an effort to remain future-proofed. Patient safety is the

foundation of everything we do, and that foundation shows up as meticulous, proactive compliance.

By setting our standards higher than the law does, we are not just building the trust of patients, we are

also becoming more resilient to regulation disruption. That is how we remain ahead of the game while

keeping accountability at the centre of innovation.

What can consumers or the industry expect next from DavaNinja?

Over the course of time, consumers have been conditioned to think of "Online Pharmacy" as

just "speed," "discounts," or "a catalogue of products." We are looking to change that perception of

healthcare. Our next project has been designed to make accessing healthcare feel instinctive,

natural, and intuitive, almost like it was supposed to always intentionally exist. It will be more than just

solving transactional challenges; it will start to address the home of healthcare needs. We have

committed ourselves to building access to speed and trust, but the phase we are now entering is

about providing an experience where convenience and care become inseparable. I cannot tell

you more today, but I promise, when we launch, it will feel not just like an upgrade in delivery, but a

transformation in how we engage with healthcare.

Stay tuned for more such updates on Digital Health News