[100 Emerging Women Leaders] How Paridhi Maheshwari’s Aurelle Health is addressing women’s hormonal health

After completing her bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, it was a given that Paridhi Maheshwari would join the family business.

She grew up seeing her father, Ashish Maheshwari, build Balaxi, a pharmaceutical company, and conversations at home invariably centered around products and markets. 

Maheshwari spent the first six months understanding the business and was posted as Vice President of Business Development focused on sales in Latin America. 

“When I joined the business in 2018, we were just entering the Latin America market. I learned a lot about the product and regulatory landscape and deep-dived into formulations, molecules, compounds, active pharmaceutical ingredients of medicines as I was involved in regulatory approvals,” she tells HerStory. 

For the next two years, Maheswari worked hard on sales growth through different channels–institutions, hospitals, distribution, etc.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, she decided to take up GMAT to apply for an MBA programme abroad. During this period, she understood a lot of sales were driven through nutraceuticals and preventive care products. 

“I started researching more about the nutraceutical space in India because  the direct-to-consumer channel was blowing up at the time. I decided I should go for my MBA to upscale and learn more things like D2C, about how to develop the soft skills to start something new,” she says.

She pursued an MBA at the London Business School from 2021-2023 and returned to India in 2023. 

Focus on women’s health

Maheshwari’s experience in pharma and healthcare, learnings from her MBA programme, and her lessons from her journey with fitness, PCOS, and hormone health, led to Aurelle Health, a D2C nutraceuticals brand focused on women’s hormonal health.

“At a particular phase in my life, I was facing different symptoms of PCOS and I would say 50 of my friends had it. Thankfully, we now have some good PCOS solutions, but it’s still a difficult space to navigate. This gave me a strong personal purpose with Aurelle Health,” she shares.

She started working with R&D partners to formulate supplements different from the gummies flooding the market. 

“We have products in capsule form, and one of them is a powder; for women of a reproductive age who have PCOS and suffer from symptoms that arise from hormonal imbalance,” she says.

Aurelle Health offers supplements to address four diverse issues. Grateful Gut is a probiotic for PCOS; Tone it Down tackles weight management; Clear Canvas–a combination of vitamin C, Zinc, and Magnesium for skin health; and Main and Maintain–a supplement focused on tackling PCOS-related hair fall at its roots.

Building an ecosystem to raise awareness

Apart from these products, Aurelle Health is also building an online community where it has collaborated with doctors and nutritionists to offer advice on nutrition and lifestyle to help address PCOS and hormone health.

“We are publishing informative videos with doctors and this is not like a promotion for Aurelle, but is focused on lifestyle changes needed and the ingredients in supplements that work for those suffering from PCOS. We aim to build an ecosystem and not just-a-product-push kind of environment on our online platforms,” Maheshwari clarifies.

Aurelle Health’s target audience is women of reproductive age–between the ages of 14 and 50 years. It was launched in August this year on its website.

“In just 20 days, the response has been very encouraging, and though the products are priced between Rs 1,100 and 1,500, our average order value is actually Rs 2,000 because people are ordering two or more of the same products,” she shares.

Its go-to marketing strategy depends on three channels--performance marketing, Meta, and Google. Maheshwari says they will also depend on a network of gynaecologists to prescribe its products.

“A lot of people take supplements only when a doctor recommends them, so we work with medical experts for this. We are also going to be available on platforms like Amazon, Yoga Life, and 1MG. We are also planning a podcast with nutritionist Luke Coutinho to raise more awareness about PCOS,” she elaborates. 

Like every other nutraceutical product, Maheshwari points out the biggest challenge is the time and money spent in R&D. She’s also quick to clarify that Aurelle Health is completely independent of Balaxi Pharma and is bootstrapped. However, she continues to look after regulatory and product development at Balaxi. She works with a team of 12, a mix of people in marketing, medical sales, and administration.

For women wanting to start up, she says clarity is most important.

“Be clear about what you want to do and not stray from it. Target a niche audience and spend time building the foundation for your vision. This has helped me to keep going in spite of the uncertainties and competition,” she adds.