Pain is the most common reason for patients to seek medical advice globally, estimated to affect 30% of the global population or more than 1.7 billion people¹.

Back pain alone causes an estimated loss of 800,000 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALY) globally every year and a substantial number of visits to health care providers, adding to the economic burden on individual and health systems². Despite its prevalence, its estimated that 80% of patients with severe pain never receive any adequate treatment³.

Pain, and other orthopaedic conditions, significantly limit mobility and dexterity, leading to difficulty working and early retirement from employment, lower levels of well-being and reduced ability to participate in social roles⁴.

This is a global issue, but can have a particularly large impact on lower income households which rely on physical labour to earn an income or to commute to their workplace. 33% of Indian adults with chronic pain report not being able to do their routine work due to pain, and 14% report being diagnosed with depression because of their pain⁵.  Meanwhile, rural adults lose on average 11 work days due to pain, which can amount to a loss of 4.9% of their annual income⁶.

Chronic pain is often the leading reason for patients to consult their primary care physician, and is associated with increased healthcare costs, length of stay in hospitals, morbidity and mortality and the ongoing cost of treatment can become a significant strain on household resources⁷. The clinical and economic burden of pain in low-income and middle-income countries is estimated at $2.2bn in total, or approximately $1226 per patient⁸.

Ascent is a leading healthcare company delivering pain management solutions for consumers.

It manufactures and distributes quality orthopaedic soft goods, wound care, fitness and other healthcare products under several brands, including its flagship brand, Flamingo.

The company has a deep and wide distribution platform – it is in the top three of the Indian market, selling over 400+ products via retail pharmacies in India as well as globally via partnerships with Japan’s Sigmax and others. The company exports to more than 55 countries across four continents and reaches over 7 million customers, 90% of whom are emerging consumers, living on less than US$10/day.

Ascent’s broad offering covers an extensive range of cost-effective and innovative premium quality products which supplement the lifestyle of individuals, enabling them to remain independent and pain free, including its premium brand, Florican, which provides aids to address an increasing prevalence of lifestyle disorders such as diabetes and osteoporosis.

Ascent is unique in that it is a manufacturer, as well as distributor. Its entire product range is manufactured in its state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Gujaratwhich is completely backward integrated and  allows the company to adapt its products to meet evolving customer demand  and enables partnerships for white label product from major global retailers.

In 2022, Flamingo was named as India’s Iconic Healthcare Brand and its founder and CEO Rajiv Mistry honoured as India’s Top Mind at the Indian Brand and Leadership Conclave 2022. These awards and others are recognition of the company’s strong focus on quality, aimed at providing “an aid for a new life” to their diverse customer base.

Enabling preventative care is a key pillar of LeapFrog’s healthcare thesis and a driving factor of the firm’s majority investment in Ascent Meditech.

 LeapFrog’s investment team, with strong experience in emerging market healthcare businesses, recognised early the potential to expand Ascent’s distribution network further into India, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, as well as to increase and optimise production. At the due diligence stage, the team assessed Ascent’s ESG systems in depth, as well as the company’s performance against international best practice and identified supporting the construction and launch of a new manufacturing facility as a key value creation driver.

This facility was launched in 2022, and has in its early life contributed to significant revenue growth, as well as opened new avenues for global partnerships. Ascent has also gained wide recognition, creating new partnerships for white label products and receiving orders from large US-based retailers, many of whom are looking to diversify away from China. At full capacity, Ascent forecasts production to increase threefold, from 40,000 pieces per day to more than 120,000 pieces per day.

Evaluating and measuring progress against ESG targets has been a key focus for the team. In the early stages, LeapFrog worked to finalise a thorough Environmental and Social Impact Management System (ESMS) which complied with not only the local but with global standards and now that the factory is built, the focus has turned to continued monitoring of the existing programs and expanding their reach based on the needs of the workforce. The new facility is fully UL-GMP compliant, and a robust environmental and social impact management plan was considered for both the construction phase and for ongoing operation.

Initiatives include reducing wastewater disposal, energy conservation via new LED lights which are manufactured on site and sectioning of its electrical distribution system into zones. The company has also upgraded to more energy efficient machinery, resulting in an energy saving of close to 25%.

LeapFrog continues to work with Ascent to drive value creation initiatives and sees real value in the company’s multi-pronged strategy to deliver crucial health and pain management aids to the world.