French pharmaceutical giant Sanofi has launched AccelRare, an AI-powered platform designed to help doctors identify rare diseases faster and improve referrals to specialist treatment centres in India. According to reports from Business Standard, the free web-based tool enables healthcare professionals to input a patient's symptoms, medical history and test results to generate differential diagnoses for 310 rare diseases within 5 to 10 minutes. The platform offers more than 88 per cent diagnostic reliability and can also recommend complementary tests and connect doctors with government-recognised Centres of Excellence for referrals.
India is estimated to have 72-96 million people living with rare diseases, yet diagnosis often takes between four-and-a-half and seven years because symptoms are commonly mistaken for more prevalent illnesses such as dengue, anaemia or routine infections. As reported by Business Standard, Mayur Shah, head of rare diseases business at Sanofi India, stated that "Rare diseases are not rare in aggregate, but awareness and diagnosis remain the biggest challenge." The platform is intended to strengthen early suspicion among doctors, especially primary care physicians and paediatricians, and accelerate access to treatment. This development comes as India's healthcare sector faces significant diagnostic challenges across multiple disease categories.
According to Business Standard, AccelRare was co-developed and validated by 67 rare disease experts across 13 networks and is built on MedVir, a platform certified as a Class-I medical device in Europe. In India, the tool has been approved as a Class-A web-based pre-diagnostic medical device. The company said the initiative forms part of its broader strategy to expand specialty care and deploy AI across healthcare functions, including diagnosis and patient management. This regulatory approval positions the platform as a legitimate diagnostic tool in India's healthcare ecosystem.
As reported by Business Standard, Sanofi is exploring partnerships with hospitals, medical associations and healthcare institutions to widen adoption across India's healthcare ecosystem. The company stated that the initiative is part of its broader strategy to expand specialty care and deploy AI across healthcare functions, including diagnosis and patient management. This represents a significant step in leveraging artificial intelligence to address the diagnostic challenges in India's healthcare sector, particularly as the country's healthcare infrastructure continues to evolve.
