Transforming Diabetic Foot Care in India: An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Sanjay Sharma

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: Hello, I’m Dr. Sanjay Sharma, a podiatric surgeon, wound care specialist, and healthcare entrepreneur with over 20 years of clinical and innovation experience. I’m the Founder of FootSecure and Co-founder of Yostra Labs and StrideAide.

My work focuses on diabetic limb salvage, medical technology, and AI-based wound care platforms. I also serve as Adjunct Faculty at Manipal Academy of Higher Education and mentor several MedTech start-ups. My goal is to build patient-centered, tech-driven ecosystems that improve clinical outcomes and accessibility in foot and wound care.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: I wouldn’t call it a transition—I’m still a full-time surgeon. Surgery is central to who I am and what I do. But over the years, I kept seeing the same story: patients being mismanaged or referred too late, especially in smaller towns. Whether it was a diabetic foot ulcer or something as common as plantar fasciitis, the treatment was often either too aggressive or completely off the mark.

That’s where the need for tech became obvious. Wound360 and Foot360 were born from this gap to bridge the divide between rural and urban care in both quality and timeliness. FootSecure itself was built as a phygital company.

We see patients in person every day, perform surgeries, and manage complex wounds—but we also realized that digital tools, AI-enabled apps, and even tech-driven footwear weren’t “nice to have.” They were necessary. They came out of need, not novelty.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: The biggest gap is systemic—podiatry as a specialty doesn’t exist in India. The NMC does not even recognize it. What’s worse, the NMC has removed foot and ankle dissection from the MBBS curriculum. So we’re training doctors who haven’t studied the anatomy of the foot in detail. That says a lot.

As a result, patients are bounced around between orthopedics, general surgery, and dermatology, without structured, multidisciplinary care. FootSecure was built to fix that.

We provide surgical care, wound care, biomechanical assessment, orthotic solutions, and rehab—all under one roof. We also focus heavily on training healthcare workers, because without education, we’ll keep treating problems instead of preventing them.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: Explaining what we do was challenge number one. Most people hadn’t heard of podiatric surgery. We had to educate patients, hospitals, and even investors that this wasn’t a subset of ortho or general surgery—it was a discipline of its own.

Building the right team was the next big hurdle. Foot and ankle care isn’t just surgery—it’s wound healing, biomechanics, footwear, and infection control. So we trained orthotists, nurses, and physiotherapists from scratch and created protocols because there simply weren’t any to follow.

One of the biggest frustrations? Footwear. We couldn’t find a single Indian manufacturer who could produce clinically effective custom footwear for diabetic foot or preventive care. I tried 40+ vendors. Nothing worked. So we started our manufacturing unit. We didn’t plan to—but we had to.

And yes, even today, we continue to struggle with finding aligned clinical talent. It’s still hard to find people who understand the nuance and want to work in this niche space. But we keep going—because the mission hasn’t changed.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: Everything we build starts with a clinical need. Wound360 and Foot360 were developed to help clinicians—especially in remote areas—document, triage, and treat more consistently. These tools don’t replace judgment; they support it, especially where specialists are not readily available.

We also use tech in footwear. Through pressure mapping and gait analysis, we create dynamically self-offloading footwear, especially for diabetics. I have to credit Dr. Paul Graham for helping us develop our foundational protocols for custom insoles and footwear—his input has been invaluable.

Beyond that, we use digital tools for follow-up, wound monitoring, and even education. The goal is always to reduce friction in care, whether it’s for the patient or the provider.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: What started as a single clinic is now a structured ecosystem. We’ve trained hundreds of doctors, nurses, and orthotists, and treated thousands of patients, many of whom were told amputation was their only option.

Our major amputation rate in diabetic foot cases is just 2.6%, compared to the national average of 19%. That stat alone says a lot about early detection and multidisciplinary care.

And we’re not just about disease management. We’ve helped national athletes, cricketers, and dancers recover from foot injuries and return to top-level performance. That’s the other side of this work—prevention, performance, and enabling potential.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: It’s all moving toward prevention—and rightly so. We’ll see AI, sensors, biomechanics, and remote care converge to deliver real-time, personalized, and proactive foot care.

That’s where StrideAIde comes in. It’s focused on preventing diabetic foot ulcers through dynamically self-offloading midsoles. It’s not about comfort—it’s about limb preservation. Meanwhile, FootSecure covers the full spectrum—from sports injuries to complex deformities.

If we get this right, we can aim for an amputation-free India. And on the flip side, maybe even help a kid from a small village get access to the right footwear early, and go chase Olympic gold. That’s the kind of healthcare system worth building.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: First, solve a real problem. Don’t build something because it sounds cool. Build it because you’ve lived the pain point.

Second, stay close to patients. That’s your edge as a clinician-turned-entrepreneur. The best ideas come from the OPD, not investor meetings.

Third—don’t try to do it alone. Surround yourself with people who complement your skills—engineers, designers, ops, and finance. Respect their craft the way you expect them to respect yours.

And finally, don’t wait to feel ready. If something keeps you up at night, that’s usually your starting point.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: Build for the need, not the want. It’s easy to get distracted by tech trends or market hype. But in healthcare, superficial solutions don’t survive.

StrideAIde was built because there was no reliable, real-world solution for offloading in diabetic foot. Wound360 was created because we saw poor documentation killing outcomes. Both came from clinical trenches, not whiteboards.

So the lesson is: fall in love with the problem, not the product.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: For patients, it’s about clarity and context. We use pressure scans, visuals, and real talk—no jargon. Show them the why behind what you’re recommending, and they’ll listen.

For healthcare providers, we keep it practical: bedside teaching, workshops, and real-life cases. Most of them have just never been taught to look at the foot properly. Once they see the framework, they start noticing it everywhere.

Education isn’t a one-off campaign—it’s a process. That’s what we focus on.

Dr. Sanjay Sharma: What excites me is the convergence. AI, biomechanics, sensors, and remote care are all coming together—and that’s when real change happens.

With StrideAIde, we’re using that convergence to prevent ulcers. With FootSecure, we’re using it to personalize care and enable performance.

But the most exciting part? The shift in mindset. We’re moving from episodic to continuous care. From treatment to prediction. And from privilege-driven outcomes to equal opportunity. That’s the future I want to build toward.