Transasia to acquire facility in Brazil to sell diagnostic products locally

Diagnostic products company Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd is looking to acquire a manufacturing facility in Brazil to be able to participate in the country’s ‘Make in Brazil’ campaign, among other things.

“We are in discussions to acquire a manufacturing facility that has the required licenses and regulatory permissions to be able to make or assemble products there,” Suresh Vazirani, Chairman and Managing Director with the Transasia-Erba group, told BusinessLine .

Transasia operates in the international market through its wholly-owned subsidiary Erba Mannheim and the group is looking to invest about ₹100 crore in the Brazil facility, Vazirani said of the transaction, which he expects to seal by March.

Brazil’s population is about one-fifth that of India’s, but it’s diagnostics market is double the size, he said on the rationale behind having a base in the region. “The India diagnostics market is estimated to be ₹7,000 crore, while Brazil is about ₹11,000 crore,” he said.

Transasia’s India revenues are about ₹1,000 crore, while exports are pegged at ₹400 crore.

One-stop-shop

Touted as India’s largest diagnostic products company, the Transasia-Erba group aspires to become a one-stop shop for “all a lab needs” in terms of blood and other testing products, explains Vazirani. In this pursuit, Transasia will battle with big daddies in the segment, including Abbott, Siemens, Beckman Coulter and, to some extent, Roche.

Towards this end, Transasia’s international arm had invested about ₹1,500 crore in 15 acquisitions, including research and development (R&D) operations over the last 10 years, the company said. “With about ₹100 crore invested in R&D every year,” he said, the effort was beginning to bear fruit and the plan was to have about three new products launched every year.

Affordable diagnostics

As Transasia clocks 40 years since its inception, Vazirani says the goal is to make blood testing accessible and affordable to all in India. Diagnostics is the most important part of healthcare, as treatment is based on these reports. Besides, it plays a preventive role that could save the country a hefty healthcare bill, he points out.

“Diagnostics is not a product, but a service,” he says, adding that while they sold testing products at low prices to hospitals, the latter profited by marking up the margins while billing patients. “Hospitals have astronomical margins,” he alleged, adding that the recent Government attention on the segment and discussions on the Essential Diagnostics List would help bring down the cost on diagnostic tests for patients.

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