Preventive healthcare startup CENT opens flagship centre in Bengaluru

CENT, a preventive healthcare startup founded by founder of healthtech platform Practo Shashank ND, has launched its first clinical prevention centre in Bengaluru.

This launch marks the company's entry into owned infrastructure aimed at standardising AI-driven early disease detection across India

The 7,000 sq. ft. facility in Bengaluru, positioned as a single-purpose prevention centre, is designed to detect life-threatening conditions in asymptomatic individuals. This is a departure from traditional diagnostic labs and hospital check-up units that run fragmented tests across shared infrastructure.

At the core of the offering is CENT’s proprietary CCNM Protocol, covering cardiac, cancer, neurological, and metabolic screening. These are delivered through a tightly integrated workflow, says the company.

Each session combines whole-body MRI, ultra-low-dose cardiac CT, DEXA scans, ECG, and more than 120 blood and biomarker tests. The results are synthesised into an AI-led 'Tru10' organ-level risk report, followed by a physician consultation, all within a two-hour window, it adds.

The company says its system operates at an 'early detection index' of 83%, a metric it claims is among the highest globally for screening protocols.

Meanwhile, the company has deepened its partnership with Siemens Healthineers to power imaging and diagnostic capabilities across its planned network. The collaboration goes beyond equipment supply, said CENT executives, focusing on co-developing preventive imaging protocols and deploying software to improve scan efficiency and diagnostic accuracy.

The partnership is also aimed at lowering costs as the company scales, addressing one of the key barriers to widespread adoption of preventive screening.

“Early detection cannot be a side feature of a multi-purpose diagnostic centre. It needs its own infrastructure,” said Anshul Khandelwal, Co-founder and Chief Business Officer at CENT, describing the Bengaluru facility as a template for future centres.

CENT’s founder Shashank ND said the company’s strategy is a structural shift in healthcare delivery.

“Healthcare today is built to respond to illness. That is the wrong starting point for most of what kills people,” he said, arguing that existing technologies are underutilised due to the lack of standardised delivery systems.

Following the launch in Bengaluru, centres are being planned in Mumbai and Delhi-NCR next. The company plans to expand to 15 cities in India, with a long-term goal of enabling 10 million scans and contributing to 1 million lives saved by 2035.

Preventive healthcare has gained traction in India, driven by rising incidence of non-communicable diseases and increased consumer willingness to pay for early diagnostics. Yet most offerings remain fragmented, with limited standardisation and varying clinical depth. CENT’s model seeks to address the gap through a hub-based approach.

The company says its existing partner-led network has conducted over 2,000 scans across seven cities since early FY26. Of these, 26% revealed clinically meaningful findings, while 3% flagged critical conditions requiring immediate intervention—primarily among individuals without symptoms.