One year to the month since diagnostic player Thyrocare Technologies sealed a deal to become part of the API Group, the path lab chain has recast its branding to move away from its initial thyroid-test association. The communication now is to reflect the array of tests they have on offer.
The recently announced recast is to communicate that Thyrocare is in the testing business and not just the thyroid-tests business, said Rahul Guha, who took charge as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, last month. “We also wanted to move away from the thyroid, which was the original integral part of our logo, because we are much beyond thyroid now. We have more than 700 tests. And therefore we wanted to have a more testing focussed logo rather than thyroid focussed logo,” Guha told BusinessLine.
Last June, during the peak of the pandemic, API Holdings (the parent of online pharmacy PharmEasy) inked a ₹4,546 crore deal to acquire Thyrocare. Presently, API too has joined the bandwagon of healthcare firms in line for an IPO (India Public Offering). Having clocked revenues of ₹562 crore for the year ended March 31, 2022, Guha did not comment on whether Thyrocare could get delisted in future.
More in the marketplace
In the meanwhile, the diagnostic space has only become more active, with drugmakers like Lupin entering the space, corporates like Adani expressing plans for the same and other fledgeling companies entering with differentiated diagnostic testing models.
Guha explained that a lion’s share of their business was in the business-to-business (B2B) segment and only 5 per cent came from individual consumers (B2C). As a result, he said, the entry of major players in the diagnostic segment would only benefit Thyrocare, as they targeted the B2C space.
On the competition in the marketplace, Guha said, “It expands the market for us... If you look at the largest health platforms, large diagnostic labs and small independent labs ... many of them have Thyrocare as the backend provider....New companies entering into diagnostic testing and helping new customers who have never got a diagnostic test (to get one for the first time) ... only expands the market for Thyrocare, because we are the partners for everybody.”
Thyrocare also does genome sequencing for tuberculosis, he added.
Growth for Thyrocare will involve an increased focus on hospitals, besides partnering with pharmacy counters to get them to book diagnostic tests for customers, says Guha. This, even as they build on their existing partnership with PharmEasy’s clientele and expand to more geographical locations, he added.