In India’s vast and complex healthcare supply chain, where medicine access often hinges not on availability but on informal credit and trust, one startup is rewriting the rules. MedScore, founded by Mannuri Vamshi Krishna, is India’s first credit risk platform tailor-made for the pharmaceutical sector. By harnessing real-time transactional data and predictive analytics, the company is solving a deeply entrenched problem that has long plagued the B2B pharma ecosystem—payment defaults and lack of financial discipline. In this exclusive interview with Machine Edge Global, Vamshi shares how MedScore is revolutionising the way credit decisions are made in healthcare, supporting MSMEs with actionable risk intelligence, and what the future holds as they expand into other high-risk B2B sectors through their new vertical, SafeCredits.
MedScore is hailed as India’s first credit risk platform for healthcare. What gap did you see in the industry that no one else addressed?
In the healthcare industry, especially across semi-urban and rural regions, we noticed a systemic gap where medicine availability was not limited by stock but by broken credit cycles and informal trust-based lending. Distributors were extending large credit lines without any formal assessment tools, relying purely on intuition or relationships. This led to widespread defaults, delayed payments, and eventually disrupted medicine access. Traditional credit systems lacked the granularity or contextual relevance to evaluate B2B pharma trade. No platform existed that could transform real-time transactional behavior into predictive credit insights tailored for this unique ecosystem. MedScore emerged to fill this void by creating a sector-specific, data-driven infrastructure that brings transparency, financial discipline, and scalable risk management to the pharmaceutical supply chain. What began as a concept has now evolved into a powerful credit infrastructure platform trusted by over 300 pharmaceutical distributors, with more than 3,000 retailers already onboarded. We currently manage data from 2.1 lakh pharmacies across India and are now extending our capabilities to other high-risk B2B sectors through SafeCredits.
Payment defaults have long plagued the B2B pharma trade. How does MedScore’s platform help bring financial discipline and transparency to this space?
MedScore tackles the persistent issue of payment defaults in B2B pharma trade by shifting credit decisions from guesswork to data-backed insights. Our platform captures real-time payment behavior, billing consistency, and credit exposure to generate predictive credit scores that reflect actual risk. This transparency allows distributors to tailor credit terms based on verified financial discipline, not informal trust. Retailers benefit by building a credible digital credit identity, which opens doors to better terms and formal financing. Automated risk alerts and smart collection strategies further reduce delinquency. With seamless ERP integration and a proprietary scoring engine tailored to pharma trade dynamics, we help businesses enforce accountability without disrupting operations.
How does the platform ensure that its credit recommendations are reliable and tailored for a volatile sector like healthcare?
We built our platform drawing inspiration from fintech benchmarks like CIBIL to bring structured credit discipline to the healthcare sector. Using live transaction data, we capture real payment behavior, billing frequency, and order patterns to develop dynamic credit profiles that reflect current financial standing. This allows us to fine-tune risk scores in real time, a crucial capability in a sector where informal lending and unpredictable disruptions are common. Our proprietary, patent-filed scoring model is tailored to the unique dynamics of pharma trade and delivers actionable insights through seamless ERP-integrated workflows. Automated alerts further help distributors make timely and informed credit decisions. The platform is already empowering hundreds of pharmaceutical distributors and thousands of retailers with safer and more efficient trade practices across Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharashtra, and Karnataka.
In what ways does MedScore specifically support MSMEs in making smarter and safer credit decisions?
We enable MSMEs in the pharma sector to make smarter and safer credit decisions through real-time, behavior-based credit scoring that replaces gut-based lending with actionable insights. A small distributor in Telangana, for instance, can now spot delayed payments from a pharmacy and adjust credit limits before it impacts cash flow. Similarly, a retailer in Maharashtra with consistent repayment history can establish a digital credit identity and access better trade terms, even without formal financial documentation. Our platform tracks key patterns such as payment cycles, purchase frequency, and outstanding dues, helping users take timely, informed actions. Visual dashboards and automated alerts simplify decision-making, making risk management accessible even to those without financial training. With ERP-integrated workflows, MSMEs can now operate with greater confidence, avoid bad debts, and grow sustainably within a sector where informal practices once left them vulnerable.
What unique challenges do you foresee while adapting your healthcare-focused platform to other industries?
In pharmaceuticals, transactions are frequent, margins are consistent, and supply chains are deeply relationship-driven, whereas industries like FMCG or agri-trade may operate on seasonal cycles, variable pricing, and fragmented distribution networks. This requires us to recalibrate our scoring model to account for sector-specific variables such as inventory turnover rates or crop-dependent purchasing patterns. Another challenge lies in data availability and quality, as many sectors still rely on manual record-keeping, making real-time tracking more complex. Gaining industry-specific trust and ensuring our scoring remains both accurate and fair across diverse use cases will be critical. However, the modularity of our platform and learnings from healthcare position us well to address these differences through SafeCredits.
Looking ahead, what is your long-term vision for MedScore—and what would you consider your measure of success five years from now?
We envision MedScore becoming the CIBIL plus UPI equivalent for B2B trade, establishing a trusted digital layer that powers safer and smarter commerce across industries. Our long-term goal is to transform credit access for MSMEs by standardizing how financial credibility is measured and shared, starting with a credit passport that gives retailers visibility and control over their credit profiles. While we began in pharmaceuticals, we are now expanding through SafeCredits into sectors like FMCG, agri-trade, and manufacturing, tailoring our platform to suit their unique credit dynamics. In the next 12 to 15 months, we plan to scale into over 10 states, onboard more than 1,000 distributors and 2 lakh retailers, and deepen ERP integrations so credit scoring becomes a seamless part of daily business workflows. For us, success in five years means empowering millions of small businesses with transparent, real-time credit infrastructure that reshapes India’s B2B economy.