Diagnostics · On-demand pathology
Orange Health Labs
An Indian diagnostics company that draws blood at home in under an hour and returns reports in six. Five laboratories hold NABL accreditation, and in the year to March 2026 it lost more than it earned.
A number, taken daily
In 2019 Dhruv Gupta’s wife and daughter both came down with dengue, a disease managed by watching one number. The platelet count is drawn daily, sometimes twice a day, because a fast fall is the signal to admit the patient.
Gupta was running telehealth and diagnostics work at Practo at the time, so he knew the trade from the inside. The digital booking options were not reliable, so the family went to the neighbourhood laboratory in person, again and again, to fetch a number somebody could have drawn at the door. That is the origin YourStory reported in June 2026. The company was incorporated in January 2020 and started taking orders in Bengaluru a year later.
Eighteen hundred laboratories, no service
India does not lack laboratories. Ameera Shah of Metropolis Healthcare puts the national count near 300,000, only a small fraction of them accredited. Bengaluru alone had more than 1,800 when Orange Health started. “Despite the presence of 1,800 labs in Bangalore and numerous tech-enabled platforms, none of them could offer the convenience we needed,” Gupta told the Press Trust of India in 2024.
The market is enormous and nobody owns it. Dr Lal PathLabs, the largest listed chain, booked Rs 2,763 crore of revenue in the year to March 2026 and held 5.5 percent of North India, its home region, as of 2024 according to Axis Capital. Metropolis held 2.7 percent of West India. Indian diagnostics is still a neighbourhood trade.
Two operators out of Practo
Gupta and Tarun Bhambra worked alongside each other at Practo for close to four years. Bhambra had been an operations manager at ITC, then at McKinsey, then an investor in healthcare startups. Gupta had built and sold DesiMartini, acquired by HT Media, and a nutrition product Practo itself bought.
What they carried out was a view about consumer behaviour, not about medicine. “The companies that won were the ones delivering a highly predictable experience. Convenience matters, but convenience plus predictability is what really wins,” Gupta told Mint in 2026. The gap they saw was operational. Once a sample was collected, nobody could see it. “If something went wrong, even we would struggle to figure out what had happened to the sample,” Bhambra said.
Continuous flow
The technical idea is a change in queueing. Traditional laboratories batch: tubes are pooled at a handoff point and carried in together, which is cheap and slow. Orange Health moves each sample on its own. A phlebotomist, branded an eMedic, drops the tube at a refrigerated micro hub and leaves for the next call, and a separate logistics layer pulls it in. Barcoding happens at the patient’s door.
The case for speed is not only comfort. Gupta says close to 70 percent of diagnostic error happens before the sample ever reaches a machine. “Speed in diagnostics is not just about convenience. Blood is data, and the moment it leaves the body, if it is not maintained in the right container at the right temperature, that data starts deteriorating,” he told YourStory.
The turn to bricks
Orange Health spent four years as an at-home service. That has changed. It opened its first walk-in collection points in the year to March 2025, and by September 2026 ran about 100, with 45 in Bengaluru and the rest across the Delhi capital region, Hyderabad and Mumbai. They now bring in roughly a fifth of revenue. “A large part of the market is traditional and, while digitally enabled, they desire a physical experience,” Gupta told Reuters in January 2026, setting a target of 150 outlets by the end of the fiscal year and full profitability in the first half of 2028.
The next step is heavier. A first radiology centre is due in Bengaluru this fiscal year, with at least two more the year after, moving the company from a light collection network into imaging equipment, floorspace and radiologists.
What is proven, and what is still claimed
| Evidence | What the record shows | Source type |
|---|---|---|
| NABL, Bengaluru | Certificate MC-6367, issued to ORANGE HEALTH LABS, A UNIT OF ORCHARD HEALTHCARE PRIVATE LIMITED at GKR Tower, Koramangala. ISO 15189:2022, field of Medical Testing, valid Mar 6, 2026 to Mar 5, 2030. | Public record |
| NABL, the other four | Hyderabad MC-6403 and Mumbai MC-8007, both to March 2030. Gurgaon MC-6822, Sep 2025 to Sep 11, 2026, itself a reissue under the newer standard. Noida MC-6357, the published copy still the 2024 version under ISO 15189:2012. | Public record |
| Scope is per laboratory | The Bengaluru annexure lists 46 pages of named tests and methods. Hyderabad runs 13 pages, Mumbai 9, Gurgaon 7. Accreditation attaches to one facility and one test list, never to a brand. | Public record |
| Currency of the file | The company publishes a table showing all five certificates running to 2030, including a new Gurgaon number, NABLM0926HR10422, valid from Sep 12, 2026, the day after MC-6822 lapsed. The current Noida certificate was not retrievable. | Company-stated |
| Entity on the certificates | Four name the legal entity ORCHARD HEALTHCARE PRIVATE LIMITED. The 2024 Noida certificate names ORCHARD HEALTH CARE PRIVATE LIMITED, as three words. The register carries one company, under the single word spelling. | Differs on the record |
| Corporate register | Incorporated Jan 10, 2020. Current CIN U85110HR2020PTC124467, previously U85110KA2020PTC131461. Registered at Prem Tower, Kirti Nagar, Gurugram, the same address as the Gurgaon laboratory. Directors Gupta and Bhambra. Paid up capital Rs 48.02 crore. A subsidiary of Orchard Healthcare Inc. | Public record |
| FY26 accounts | Revenue from operations Rs 138.6 crore against Rs 84 crore a year earlier. Expenses Rs 240.3 crore. Loss before tax Rs 97 crore, plus a Rs 49 crore deferred tax charge, for a total loss of Rs 146 crore. Cash and bank Rs 4.5 crore at Mar 31, 2026. | Public record |
| The turnaround claim | Y Combinator and Reuters describe 30 minute collection. The company site advertises a 60 minute promise met 98 percent of the time, as do Mint, PTI and the 2022 releases. A 30 minute slot began as a Bengaluru pilot in 2024. | Claims differ |
| US securities filings | No Form D for the company or its parent. The only EDGAR name match is Orange Health Solutions, Inc., CIK 0001604556, which filed in April 2014, six years before this company existed, and is unrelated. | Not found |
| Published evidence | No peer reviewed study of turnaround time or accuracy was found. The speed claim rests on internal data and, per Gupta, surveys the company has not published. | Not found |
Read plainly: the quality record is real and it is specific. Five named facilities hold NABL accreditation, and the annexures list exactly which tests each is accredited for. What the record does not support is a blanket claim that the brand is accredited. Bengaluru is a deep laboratory with 46 pages of accredited tests. Gurgaon has seven. The business record is equally specific and less comfortable. Revenue grew 65 percent and the loss grew with it, and at March 2026 the company held Rs 4.5 crore of cash against Rs 240.3 crore of annual spending.
What to watch
- Whether the current Noida certificate is published, and under which spelling of the legal entity.
- Whether the annexures for Hyderabad, Mumbai and Gurgaon widen, or whether the harder assays keep travelling to Bengaluru.
- The first radiology centre, and whether imaging can be accredited and staffed at the pace phlebotomy was.
- The FY27 and FY28 accounts. Full profitability is promised for early 2028.
- Whether 30 minute collection becomes standard or stays a pilot in dense pockets.
In their words
“Out of nearly 3,000 tests, only four really require fasting”
Tarun Bhambra, co-founder, to Mint, 2026 · Independent
“In clinical practice, fasting is typically recommended only for a limited set of investigations such as fasting blood glucose, lipid profile and a few specialized metabolic assessments.”
Dr Zeba Ali, head of laboratory, Paras Health Gurugram, to Mint, 2026 · Independent
“But speed matters only in 20% of tests that are related to acute care. For the remaining 80% speed does not matter because they are related to chronic illness”
Dr A. Velumani, founder, Thyrocare Technologies, to Mint, 2026 · Independent
“Anyone can technically start a lab, but for patients the most important thing is not speed, it is accuracy. A report delivered fast is meaningless if it is wrong.”
Ameera Shah, executive chairperson, Metropolis Healthcare, to Mint, 2026 · Independent
“Delivering 60-minute collection implies excess collection capacity, disciplined logistics, dense geographic coverage, and the ability to maintain clinical standards while compressing timelines”
Gaurav Agarwal, co-founder, Tata 1mg, to Mint, 2026 · Independent
“The 100 collection centres we have now, they contribute around 20% of the overall revenue”
Tarun Bhambra, to Mint, September 2026 · Independent
Related companies
Sources
- Public recordNABL certificate MC-6367 and scope annexure, Bengaluru
- Public recordNABL certificates MC-6403, MC-8007 and MC-6822 with annexures
- Public recordOrchard Healthcare Private Limited, CIN history and capital
- Public recordNo Form D for the company or its parent
- IndependentOrange Health posts Rs 139 Cr revenue in FY26
- IndependentOrange Health Labs to raise $30 Mn Series C led by Iron Pillar
- IndependentHow Orange Health Labs is trying to become the Zepto of blood tests
- IndependentOrange Health bets on offline centres, plans radiology
- IndependentOrange Health eyes profitability in early 2028
- InterviewQuality diagnostic at speed as prescription for success
- InterviewBringing 30-minute home sample collection to Indian diagnostics
- CompanyNABL certificate listing for five laboratories
Profile researched and written by Healthcare Discovery. Last updated September 29, 2026.
