Leading medical diagnostics firm SRL Ltd will invest about Rs 450 crore and open 45 laboratories across India in 2014-15.

The largest of these laboratories will be opened in Gurgaon with an investment of about Rs 350 crore. With five more to be opened, Gujarat will have 23 laboratories this year, an official said.

Replicating PPP model

The company is also exploring with various state governments to replicate the public-private partnership (PPP) model under which it already operates 24x7 medical diagnostic laboratories in all 24 districts of Himachal Pradesh under a contract with the Himachal Pradesh Government, Sanjeev Vashishta, Chief Executive Officer, told Business Line here on Monday.

Its samples collection logistics in the hilly state includes transportation of samples for pathological tests using any vehicles from bicycles to aircraft. “Within six hours, our samples reach their nearest laboratory and tests are completed in most cases in the next four hours.”

Facilities in Africa

SRL Ltd has also signed contracts to set up similar facilities at five places in Africa in countries like Nigeria, Congo, Kenya and Uganda. “The local investors would provide us infrastructure where we will set up and manage these centres, the first of which will become operative in August this year.”

Currently, SRL Ltd runs 280 laboratories across India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Dubai and has a staff of 6,500, including 700 doctors and scientists. It has 5,700 sample collection centres, including 50 abroad, where it carries out over three crore diagnostic tests per annum.

According to him, SRL, which has a 40 per cent market share in organised diagnostic sector in India, is not only India’s largest but also Asia’s second largest and the world’s ninth largest such company.

He said SRL Ltd, the only pan-Indian company in this sector offering radiological, pathological and imaging services under one roof, is now present in about 350 out of 640 districts of India, including Tier-II and III cities. Ninety per cent of medical diagnostics business continues to be in the unorganised sector.

Established in 1995, the New Delhi-based company has so far invested nearly Rs 1,000 crore, including private equity support of Rs 520 crore from Jacob Ballas, Avilgo, Sabre and the World Bank-associated IFC, Washington. “Our promoters hold 55 per cent equity in SRL Ltd and the company’s valuation is about Rs 3,500 crore,” Vashishta said.

At present, India’s medical diagnostics market size is worth about $3.5 billion (Rs 20,000 crore), of which 10 per cent is in the organised sector. The sector is growing at a CAGR of 15 per cent.

Related Topics