After taking on the telecom sector and readying a foray into e-commerce, Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries is now reportedly eyeing the diagnostics market. According to a Livemint report, RIL’s lesser-known biotechnology arm Reliance Life Sciences (RLS) is planning to set up pathology labs across the country.
RIL is looking to do this by partnering with local entrepreneurs. It is also reportedly looking to collaborate with doctors, existing pathology labs and hospitals.
RLS will reportedly follow a hub and spoke model where there will be one regional hub that will provide ‘super-specialised’ tests, while the chain of network labs will provide routine tests generally offered by diagnostic labs. RLS also reportedly plans to set up collection centres and points where tests can be collected and sent to the regional hub or the network labs for processing.
A person who received a partnership proposal from RLS told Livemint that RLS is looking to build a network of these labs, starting with 20-30 labs. RLS is reportedly looking at a revenue sharing model where the revenue sharing would be on net sales basis of 15:85. RLS will keep 15%, but the franchise will be bearing the cost of setting up the lab.
Human resource support in the form of one pathologist, one IT and logistics official and one accounts, and materials staff will reportedly be provided by RLS.
“RLS is selling it as a low investment-high return entrepreneurial joint venture. It has approached a number of players in the industry to partner with them to set up these labs," Livemint quotes another person in the know as saying.
However, RIL has reportedly denied such a development.
As per the website of RLS, Reliance Life Sciences is a “research-driven organization developing business opportunities in bio-therapeutics (plasma proteins, biosimilars and novel proteins), pharmaceuticals (later-generation, oncology generics), clinical research services, regenerative medicine (stem cells therapies) and molecular medicine.”
The Livemint report states that with lifestyle disorders becoming more prevalent, with an increase in India’s ageing population, RLS sees a lucrative opportunity in the pathology business.