Readies district and tier-2 hospitals to run trials beyond the metros
TL;DR Broadsite turns capable hospitals in smaller cities into trial-ready sites. It trains investigators and coordinators, sets up or links an ethics committee, installs the record-keeping sponsors audit, and then markets the network to sponsors who need patients from under-represented regions. Sponsors and CROs pay per site activated and per patient.
India's trials draw on a narrow slice of the country. Of India-only phase 3 drug and biologic trials registered over five years, 61.4% ran in a single geographic zone and only 6.8% in all six[1]. The authors argue that India's ethnic diversity is under-represented in most trials, which matters when a drug behaves differently in a population nobody tested.
Disease follows people, not trial sites. A review of stroke trials in the national registry found disparity across states, with the private sector contributing most studies[2].
So why don't sponsors go further afield? Hospitals outside metros often lack trained coordinators, standard procedures and a working ethics committee, so sponsors simply skip them.
What it does, in regulatory terms: site readiness and network management only. Broadsite doesn't act as a sponsor or a contract research organisation, and it gives no treatment. Each site and its ethics committee follows the New Drugs and Clinical Trials Rules 2019 and Indian good clinical practice[3].
Broadsite picks hospitals with enough patients in a target disease, then works through a fixed readiness plan - good clinical practice training for investigators, a hired and trained coordinator, document control and storage, and either a registered ethics committee or a link to one nearby. Mock audits come before any sponsor visit. Once ready, the site joins a network that sponsors can query by disease, zone and past enrolment.
The seed pitched AI protocol design for diversity, and I've reframed it. A protocol can ask for patients from six zones, but if no site in those zones can run a study then nothing changes. Site capacity is the real bottleneck.
Hospitals take part at little or no cost because they gain trial income. Sponsors and CROs pay an activation fee per site and a share of per-patient payments. The prices are my assumption for now. Indian sponsors and public programmes are a second buyer, since ICMR has argued for national trial networks run through public-private partnerships[4].
CDSCO's inspection checklist for ethics committees, dated 29 May 2025[3], raises the bar that new sites must meet, which makes outside help more valuable. More phase III trials are now led by Indian institutions[5], and they need cheaper sites than metro hospitals charge. Sponsors that want broad enrolment have few ready sites to choose from outside the metros.
No public figure exists for spending on trial-site development in India. The narrowest signal - 1,385 phase III trials were registered in India's trial registry from 2007 to mid-2025[5], and most ran in one zone[1].
Every multi-zone study is a potential customer, but the count of trials is a ceiling and not a market size.
One US site network brings trials into community healthcare settings through doctors patients already see[6]. ICMR has proposed national networks and partnerships to build early-phase capacity[4]. Large CROs and site-management organisations in India mostly work with established metro hospitals. The gap is a network built for regions sponsors currently skip.
| Difficulty | Moderate (50/100) |
| Starting capital | ₹1–2 Cr |
| Time to launch | 9–12 months |
Every new site takes months to get ready, and the first sponsor contract only arrives after several sites pass audits. Keeping trained coordinators in smaller cities is hard. Ethics committee quality varies a lot, and one failed inspection can damage the whole network's name.
Yes, but the licences sit with the sites and sponsors. Broadsite gets them ready and keeps them compliant.
Building this outside India? The categories above usually have a local equivalent, so check with your own regulator.
Don't let AI decide patient eligibility or anything an ethics committee signs off. Those stay with the investigator and the committee.
Want to work out the AI layer for Broadsite? Talk to Yash →
Here's what can go south -
I think it's right for a founder from site management or CRO operations with relationships at mid-sized sponsors. If you're after a software margin then it is the wrong business. Prove first that two sponsors will commit to a study in a region you add, before building more than three sites.
Plan for roughly ₹1–2 Cr, mostly for coordinators, training and the months before the first sponsor contract arrives.
Broadsite itself needs no drug licence, but every site needs a registered ethics committee under the NDCT Rules 2019 and every study must be on the national registry before enrolment.
Yes, wherever sponsors struggle to reach patients outside big cities. Check your local trial rules and data protection law before you build the first site.
The free Broadsite validation kit has the line-by-line capital breakdown, the effort scoring, the ethics-committee and trial-rule checklist, a 14-day validation sprint with pass/fail targets, a 90-day launch plan, 10 interview questions for sponsors and hospitals, and 5 assumptions to test. Download the kit →
Thinking about building Broadsite or something close to it? The make-or-break work is signing a sponsor commitment before you fund site readiness, and that's a sequencing problem I help founders with. If you need a hand, you know where to find me. Talk to Yash →
For illustration only. Names are fictional and ideas hypothetical; sourced facts are real but may be out of date. Nothing here is legal, financial or professional advice, and Yash Khatri is not personally liable for any use of it. Read the full disclaimer.