Medulla expects Capsule JV with Tribes to outpace its own revenue within 18 months

New Delhi: Medulla Communications expects its new healthcare experiential agency, Capsule, to generate more revenue within 12 to 18 months than Medulla itself earns today. 

Capsule, a joint venture launched with Tribes Communications, is being positioned as India’s first super-specialist healthcare experiential agency. The new agency aims to capture at least 30% of the country’s healthcare marketing clients within the next 18 months.

Speaking on the joint venture exclusively with BestMediaInfo.com, Praful Akali, Founder and MD, Medulla Communications, said, “Within 12 to 18 months, Capsule will work with more clients than Medulla currently does in healthcare. Consequently, Capsule’s revenue base is projected to surpass the one Medulla built over 17 years.” 

Capsule is designed to tap into the single largest spend category in healthcare marketing, such as events, activations and on-ground experiences, where client budgets already dwarf traditional advertising, Akali explained. The new agency is not an extension of Medulla but a separate entity, Akali stressed, created to capture a market he describes as “ripe for reinvention.”

According to Akali’s estimates, more than 70% of healthcare marketing spends already flow into experiential formats such as doctor conferences, product launches, patient activations, merchandising and even the small but critical interactions between medical representatives and doctors. 

By contrast, less than 10% of healthcare marketers invest meaningfully in traditional advertising, and Medulla itself works with only about 5% of those advertisers.

“Every healthcare client spends on experiences, whether they know it or not. Capsule is built to professionalise and scale that,” Akali said. He expects at least 30% of India’s healthcare marketing clients to engage with Capsule within the next 18 months, compared to the roughly 5% Medulla currently serves. 

For Tribes Communications, Capsule represents an entry into a sector it has long eyed. “Healthcare is one of the most complex and fastest-growing sectors in India. There’s growing investment in communication, experiential events and OOH, but very few agencies can balance compliance, creativity and innovation,” Gour Gupta, Chairman and MD, Tribes Communications, told BestMediaInfo.com.  

Gupta declined to share investment figures but confirmed that both partners have put in financial resources and are “fully committed” to scaling Capsule. 

He added that Healthcare experiential is poised to become a strong contender in the next couple of years. With the sector growing rapidly and clients increasingly seeking specialised solutions, Capsule is positioned to deliver on that demand. 

“Capsule is not a healthcare arm of Tribes. It is a joint venture built from the ground up with a single-minded focus on healthcare engagement,” Gupta said. 

Medulla has long advised on experiential campaigns but avoided taking responsibility for execution. Akali said that hesitation ended only after finding a partner with the operational muscle to match Medulla’s healthcare expertise. 

“Doing this well is easier said than done. We have been very particular about not taking on execution without the scale and transparency a partner like Tribes brings,” he stated. 

The collaboration gives Capsule a wide mandate: pharma product launches, medical conferences, patient-awareness drives, behaviour-change activations and on-site merchandising. 

Capsule will also target subtler touchpoints such as the doctor-medical representative interaction, which Akali described as “the largest piece of experience that no agency is working on right now. 

Both founders, Akali and Gour, believe Capsule could shift the competitive dynamics of India’s healthcare marketing sector. 

Akali predicts healthcare will soon lead Indian advertising growth and “bring back the magic of partnership” between brands and agencies. He also expects Capsule to expand beyond India, leveraging Medulla’s global healthcare network and Tribes’ Asia footprint. 

The venture arrives at a time when meetings and activations are already the single largest marketing expense for many pharma and hospital brands. 

Capsule’s success will depend on delivering compliant yet high-impact campaigns and on proving its ability to move fast in a heavily regulated environment.