Netherland-based, Qiagen, leading sample and assays technology provider with $ 893.0 million sales is looking at expanding its distribution base in India through more collaboration with government and private medical institutions.
Speaking at the launch of Qiagen cares Kolkata Project, a joint project with Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute on cervical cancer, Victor Shi, president, Asia said “Asia being a high disease burden area is one of the fastest growing healthcare markets, growing at approximately 10 per cent in 2008. It had contributed roughly 10 per cent of Qiagen’s total global business in 2008. Asian market is key to our growth strategy, we hope to maintain double digit growth that we had over the last few years with increased focus on Asia specific diseases like avian flu, cervical cancer, SARS, TB etc.” “We are also looking at expanding our commercial network in India this year. Qiagen in India is only limited to Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai. We will be increasing our Indian team this year. There are many under-served areas in India like West Bengal, Orissa. We will be looking at more such programmes in collaboration with government or private agencies,” said Shi.
The company at present has three major distribution bases, one each in Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai.
“We are in talks with various partners and government agencies in various states to implement more programmes and bring in more of our products and offerings from our stable,” he added.
According to reports of World Health Organisation, India ranks first among other developing countries in terms of cases of cervical cancer.Every year, more than 130,000 women are diagnosed with cervical cancer with 74,000 deaths. Kolkata is not behind with records of 8,000 such cases each year.
To address the growing issue of cervical cancer in the state, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute (CNCI), a leading cancer institution in the state today announced a joint programme with Qiagen to carry out free screening programmes for women in the districts of Midnapore, South 24 Parganas and Hooghly.
“We are targetting our mobile field clinics to provide cervical cancer screening and treatment facilities to 50,000 women in select districts from June this year. The programme slated to be extended over the next five years is at present waiting for the state government's final approval,” said Jaydip Biswas, CNCI.
CNCI receives 1,000 gynaecological cancer cases out every year, of which 700 to 800 cases are cervical cancer. Around 90 per cent of these are at advanced stages and 80 per cent of them will expire in the next two to three years.