The Hindu Business Line : GE Healthcare to step up investments

"We see a market that is growing at about 12 per cent per year. And we are growing faster. Therefore, we need ongoing investments," Mr Stephen Bolze, President-International with GE Healthcare Technologies, told Business Line. The investments would be in engineering and manufacturing, he said, unwilling to divulge financials.

GE Healthcare is a $15-billion unit of General Electric Company. And GE Healthcare Technologies is a $12-billion business of GE Healthcare. Its portfolio comprises medical imaging and information technologies, patient monitoring systems and healthcare services.

GE's total revenues in India, comprising domestic sales and exports, are $400 million (Rs 1,745 crore).

GE Healthcare currently employed about 1,500 people in India and a good deal of software development and healthcare manufacturing was being done in India, he said.

On future manufacturing plans, he said the company would look for cost-effectiveness and intellectual capital.

"At this point India plays in our decisions as much as China," he said, though decisions on design, manufacture etc., would be made evaluating the different factors.

GE Healthcare's top officials were in Mumbai at the installation of the country's first volume CT system at Jaslok Hospital. Among other things, the VCT helped image the heart in five seconds, a first time of sorts, a doctor present at the occasion said.

Mr V. Raja, GE Healthcare Technologies' President and Chief Executive Officer for South Asia, said of the 1,800 engineers employed globally in healthcare, about 600 were located in India, across multiple entities.

Manufacturing of value products would become more India-centric in the future.

And while this would largely cater to the Indian market, he said plans were on the anvil to export to markets such as East Europe, Russia, South Africa etc.

Echoing Mr Bolze's thoughts, he said, India and China compete when it came to sourcing components and assemblies.

"GE Healthcare's philosophy is simple, you manufacture the product only in one country for the global market. You manufacture where it makes sense from a cost point of view, from a quality point of view and a capability point of view. And we export throughout the world."

Low-end ultrasounds and healthcare monitors are some of the finished products exported from India to the rest of the world.

About 40 per cent of CT tubes and 80 per cent of CT detector modules are also made out of India, he said.

GE Healthcare Biosciences, a $3-billion business involving medical diagnostics, drug discovery and protein separation also has a huge opportunity in India, he said, and added that they were in discussion with drug companies in India.

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