RJ Corp owned Diagno Labs buys health startup iClinic

Diagno Labs, a RJ Corp owned distributed pathological lab company, with a rapidly growing lab footprint and collection network and iClinic Healthcare Pvt. Ltd., a dynamic new entity and one of the fastest entrants making inroads into the Indian healthcare sector offering Remote Medical Diagnostics in up-country markets through their highly successful IT platform, today merged to form a strategic partnership to offer a wide spectrum of quality and comprehensive healthcare services to the consumers.

The decision came in the wake of both the partners bringing in synergies to tap a huge untapped demand in offering a distinct model of value-added healthcare services that is available, affordable and acceptable across India and overseas markets.

Diagno Labs, founded in 2013 is a quality and service focused pathology operation with 7 operating labs, a network of 1500 collection centers.  Headquartered in Gurgaon with its main reference lab, it operates other labs in East Delhi, Mumbai, Sahranpur, Srinagar, Jamshedpur and Medanta's captive lab in its new hospital in Indore.

Divesting some of its stake in Diagno, RJ Corp appointed Sanjoy Mukerji as Managing Director of Diagno Labs. Mukerji, who is also a shareholder of Diagno, will have the twin responsibilities of running Diagno Labs and iClinic Healthcare and will report to the Diagno's Board of Directors.

RJ Corp group is a Rs 10,000 crore diversified enterprise working with global brands like Pepsi, Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken, Cream Bell, Budweiser, Delhi Public School and with a growing interest in healthcare - operating in India, Indian sub continent and in East Africa. RJ Corp is run by the well known billionaire entrepreneur Ravi Jaipuria.

Incepted in 2012 and having commercialized operations just over a year ago, iClinic Healthcare is a brainchild of Sanjoy Mukerji, Ex-Chief Commercial Officer of Vodafone India and Varun Berry, Managing Director, Britannia Industries Ltd. Jointly funded, the rationale of the venture is to make quality healthcare accessible to an unaddressed 20 million of the Indian population who are suffering in tier 2, 3 cities and in dire need of credible medical assistance.

Today, iClinic boasts of a rapidly growing presence in over 25 locations across North and East India apart from being available through their web diagnostics website which allows doctors to remotely diagnose patients. iClinic's product of enabling patients in up-country markets to consult metro based specialists is unique and extremely beneficial to denizens in upcountry India and Africa. The company has been exploring strategic tie ups to expand its footprint.

For further expansion and diversification, both Diagno and iClinic Healthcare will receive funding, strategic guidance, expansion and logistic support from RJ Corp apart from a robust platform to expand aggressively in India and Africa.

Speaking on this strategic tie-up, Sanjoy Mukerji, remarked, "Quality, timely and affordable healthcare is the need of the hour. We are indeed happy to have merged with Diagno Labs as we see huge synergies in addressing this demand by offering a gamut of services. With a common target audience such as medical fraternity, diagnostic centers in up-country markets, specialists and hospitals in metro towns, our aim is to consolidate and expand our reach and maximize our presence. The strategy of both partners is to collaborate and consolidate and reduce operating costs and improve efficacies."

Speaking of the partnership, Jaipuria added, "We have an ambitious game plan before us. In the coming 3 years, we are confident to touch at least over a 100 lab locations and a network of over 10,000 collection centres. On the corporate front, we will have a client base of over 300 and hope to forge small hospital tie ups in small towns. We propose to have 20 specialist hubs in metros and large towns operational with a substantial presence in Africa. Our aim is to have an expansive and dedicated network of thousands of doctors, specialists, path labs, collection points, diagnostic centers, corporate and hub hospitals (in metros) and nursing homes (in small towns) thereby creating a distinct valued ecosystem for non-hospitalized care with a dominant web presence for both the pathology and consultancy products."