30 Minute Interview

'We Will Continue to Focus on Market-oriented Improvements'

Beckman Coulter Inc, leading manufacturer of clinical diagnostics equipment, is headquartered in the US. The company is operating in India through their direct subsidiary Beckman Coulter India Pvt Ltd. Dr SP Chandrashekar, Managing Director, Beckman Coulter India Pvt Ltd, briefs about his company's products and shares his opinion on the booming Indian healthcare industry with K Deepalakshmi. Excerpts:

Dr SP Chandrashekar Managing Director, Beckman Coulter India Pvt Ltd

What prompted Beckman Coulter to establish its subsidiary in India?

Beckman Coulter had been operating in the country through a few distributors for almost two decades and with one particular distributor for a long period of time. The market itself has clearly escalated into one of the world's foremost emerging economies. However, in comparison with the overall CAGR of the healthcare and life sciences industries in India, Beckman Coulter's growth was not commensurate. Also, being a direct subsidiary helps the company reach its customers directly, invest in people development, as well as make efforts to improve brand equity in the market served. Hence, the subsidiary in India.

How has been the response from the Indianmarket?

It is very gratifying to note that the Indian market has been very appreciative and supportive of our efforts and has responded fairly positively to the changes that we made and to our direct entry into India. While thanking our customers for their support to our products, I would like to assure them that we will continue to focus on market-oriented improvements so that the customers continue to get better products and services from us.

Please brief us about the different product profile that Beckman Coulter has in India.?

We have products for the clinical diagnostics industry comprising hospital- based laboratories and independent diagnostics and referral labs and products for the life sciences research industry. In clinical diagnostics, we have products for testing biochemical, immunoassay and cellular analysis parameters. In biochemistry, Beckman Coulter has its fully automated range of clinical chemistry analysers and system reagents for more than 100 chemistries. Beckman Coulter's clinical chemistry analyser brand name Synchron is very well known.

The Unified Workcell concept for chemistry and immunoassays under the UniCel DxC/DxI brand will allow high throughput biochemistry and immunoassay systems to be integrated to enhance efficiency and productivity of large labs whilst also delivering additional features such as unique closed tube sampling options.

In immunodiagnostics, Beckman Coulter has its 'access' range of fully-automated chemiluminescence analysers and a large menu of different assays. Beckman Coulter has three different models- Access 2, UniCel DxI 600 and DxI 800. While Access 2 can provide a throughput of up to 100 tests/hour, the high end model Unicel DxI 800 can provide a throughput of up to 400 tests per hour (the fastest in the market). The Unicel DxI 600 is suitable for medium workload labs, as it has a throughput of 200 tests/hour.

In cellular analysis, starting with haematology, Beckman Coulter is very well known because of the brand name which even today is considered generic for cell counters. The legacy of the Coulter brothers has been taken well forward by the company with an impressive line up of haematology analysers, including the top of the range LH platform products for cellular analysis. Beckman Coulter has redefined the parameters of cell counting. In addition, Beckman Coulter's range of flow cytometry portfolio is very well established with positive market acceptance of the Cytomics FC500 system.

In life sciences, Beckman's brand name and legacy is well established in centrifugation with a comprehensive range of ultra, high performance, high speed and general centrifuge units. Furthermore, the company has products for liquid handling automation in the Biomek series, DNA sequencing and expression systems (CEQ), research cytometry (Quanta), proteomics (PA800 systems and PF2D) along with spectrophotometers and other life science tools.

Do you have any product(s) that is available in the West, but not in India? If yes, what are reasons for not introducing them in India?

Beckman Coulter has products in the entire biomedical continuum starting from life science research products and for drug discovery and analysis all the way through biochemistry, immunochemistry, hematology, flow cytometry and the forthcoming products in the molecular biology. All of these products are available based on customer needs in India that can be sustainable over a period of time.

As such, there are no products that are available in the West and not available to us in India. As a matter of fact, we recently launched a high-end immunochemistry system called Unicel DxI 600 which was launched for the first time in the world in India itself.

How are your particle characterisation products different from the conventional ones?

While all particle characterisation products have to analyse and characterise particles, it is important to remember that the origins of automated particle characterisation industry are entirely based on the Coulter principle founded by the Coulter brothers of Beckman Coulter. Having said that, particle characterisation products from Beckman Coulter have a unique architecture with better detectors which lead to better resolution, reliability and reproducibility of the results compared to conventional ones.

In which areas is the R&D team of Beckman Coulter focusing on?

Beckman Coulter is the only company that is entirely devoted to biomedical testing, such that we are not an extended arm or appendage of a pharmaceutical or a consumer products or even an imaging company. Therefore, our focus in terms of R&D will continue to be constantly on all aspects of biomedical testing that will help reduce overall healthcare costs.

What prospective do you see in the Indian healthcare market?

The Indian healthcare market is not only growing steadily, but there is an increased emphasis on quality in diagnosis and treatment, as well as processes relating to the entire healthcare delivery system. We believe that over the next decade or so, not only can Indian healthcare market provide world class healthcare facilities in the top first-tier cities, but will also go down to the next 20 to 30 two-tier cities of the country.

Do you have any new product in the pipeline?

We will continue to have new products coming into market from our pipeline. Through alliances, acquisitions and our own developments, we plan to extend our range in research cytometry, automated workcells, menu parameters for immunodiagnostic testing and molecular diagnostics

What are the future plans of Beckman Coulter India?

Beckman Coulter has established a subsidiary in India with a long term view and our plans are to be an important and major player in the medical diagnosis as well as life science research arena as these industries evolve and develop over the years.

k.deepalakshmi@expressindia.com