Super Religare Laboratories Ltd (SRL), the country’s largest diagnostic network, owned by the promoters of Fortis, will be the biggest indirect beneficiary of the Parkway acquisition.
Parkway’s two associate firms, Parkway Laboratory Services Ltd and Medi-Rad Associates Ltd, the laboratory testing and the diagnostic service arms, would now build synergies with SRL.
The Indian diagnostic company, recently expanded to neighbouring countries, has been on the lookout for acquisition targets or local partners to gain the acceptability and confidence of patients and doctors abroad.
Parkway’s testing and diagnostic facilities are known to be among the leading service providers in that segment in Singapore.
SRL management said the acquisition would allow them to grow at a faster pace in overseas markets. “Apart from UAE and the Saarc region, all the countries where Parkway has a presence are new markets for us,” said Sanjeev K Chaudhry, chief executive officer, SRL.
According to Chaudhry, there will be significant synergies for both entities, though SRL had not done “any significant mapping” at the moment. “Obviously, going ahead, we are to gain from the synergies,” he added.
Apart from wanting to set up reference laboratories in Europe, West Asia and the Southeast Asian countries, SRL had expressed intention to expand operations to Africa and North America, to tap the outsourcing opportunities in the two latter continents.
The company’s first overseas acquisition was a Dubai-based diagnostic lab, Mena Healthcare, in 2008. SRL presently has a network of 1,200 collection centres spread across 450 towns and cities, operating through 50 satellite and five clinical reference laboratories. It conducts 35,000 tests every day and was the first to introduce several diagnostic tests in the country. Today, SRL also launched the ‘sports gene test’, a non-invasive one, which the company claims will distinguish the genetic predisposition of a child to a particular area of sports and games.
