Roche Diabetes Care looks to double its retail presence in India

The company is looking to cover 60% of the market in next 5 years

 Roche Diabetes Care India, a part of Roche Diagnostics India, which hived off into a separate entity last November, is planning to double its retail reach.

The company, which sells equipment for self-monitoring of blood glucose (SMBG) under the brand Accu-Check, will double outlets to 1.2 lakh pharmacy outlets in the next five years.

The company is looking to tie up with state and central government to expand reach.

Sidhartha Roy, general manager at Roche Diabetes Care India said, " We will be embarking on a model where we intend to double the reach in the next five years, to 1,20,000 outlets."

Of 6,00,000 registered pharmacists in India, 2,00,000 sell diabetes treatment medication, including insulin, according to the traders' organisation. 

If the company can touch 60 per cent of pharmacies, it would be a milestone, said Roy. From two million patients at present, the company is planning to touch around 10 million in five years.

Overall market size for the segment should be around $100 million for the 4-4.5 million patients. The diabetes division has four international players— Roche Diabetes Care with the brand Accu-Check, LifeScan from Johnson & Johnson with the brand One Touch, Abbott Diabetes Care division with the brand Optium and Ascensia Diabetes Care.

Roche Diabetes Care became a new legal entity in November 7, 2016, after the group decided to invest in diabetes care in India. It was set up to solely focus on the diabetes care in India and China. India was one of the first countries where it hived off the SMBG business. Besides, the diagnostics business is fundamentally a B2B model, but the diabetes care business is a B2C and both were in the same entity till the hive off took place.

"Structurally we can be more agile and make changes to the B2C model, get skill sets accordingly. It gets us more independence to do the things which is needed for this organisation to serve the people with diabetes. The independence of the business makes us faster in decision, also bringing in new products on time to the market,"  said Roy, explaining the rationale behind the hive off.

The company said that it has the lowest price in terms of a long-term diabetes management such as the price of strips used in blood sugar monitoring.

The company is looking at bringing in connectable monitoring equipment using bluetooth, and an Accu-Check Connect App, which would enable free flow of monitoring results in a digital format. The same could be presented in charts or other formats for better viewing by the doctor.