Indian medical device industry is at an inflection point

BPL Medical Technologies Pvt. Ltd., erstwhile medical devices business division of BPL Limited, a company promoted by visionary Mr. TPG Nambiar has been a pioneer in the Indian medical devices space since 1967. It developed and manufactured India’s first ECG device, first in-hospital defibrillator and public access defibrillator. BPL Medical’s registered office and head office are located in Bengaluru, Karnataka, India. In 2013, the medical devices business division was carved out of BPL Limited into BMTPL through business transfer following which Goldman Sachs invested in BMTPL as a majority shareholder.

BPL Medical serves its customers, which are primarily hospitals, nursing homes and physicians through its direct sales force and pan India distribution network.

Years 2020 and 2021 will be remembered in history as the greatest learning for humankind. Across the globe, we have seen a huge disruption of mobility and greatest adoption of digital tools. It has been a challenging year as the healthcare sector across the globe, which has been pushed to the brink in terms of overburdening patient load and having to deal with a highly infectious
virus.

The Indian government has done a tremendous job of containing the virus by taking swift measures, be it in terms of imposing lockdown or preparedness of medical infrastructure, especially given our underpenetrated healthcare infrastructure.

Healthcare will remain in focus and mainstream of discussions be it for healthcare delivery, pharmaceuticals or medical devices throughout 2021.

At BPL Medical Technologies, we have been always focused on developing products for Indian customers and keeping the ecosystem in mind, we will continue this roadmap in 2021 and develop new products to better suit the requirements of our country. We have a well-diversified portfolio of product offerings, which cater to most of their needs. Our continuously expanding network of sales and service manpower, ensure timely support to our customers, across the remotest parts of our large country. We also see a huge opportunity to export our products to neighboring countries and have made significant progress in terms of registering our products in several developing countries and are focusing on expanding our business in these geographies.

Marketing strategy
BPL’s marketing strategy is to continuously evolve our distribution network to be able make our products reach the last mile of the country. In terms of products offerings, we have a very large portfolio of products, which caters to most of the requirement of medical equipment for any mid- and large- sized hospital. Apart from our B2B product range, we continue to focus and penetrate our B2C product range, our homecare products.

In the current situation, and even otherwise, the awareness toward healthy living is increasing with every passing year, and we continue to provide our customers with an enhanced range of homecare products to monitor several parameters of their health, while they are confined to their homes.

We have a well charted exports strategy, and continue to add more geographies to it. We see a huge untapped export potential for BPL Medical Technologies and are very careful while selecting which export destinations and products to be exported out of India.

My vision
My vision is to be the largest Indian medical devices company. I feel, with our wide product range and strong distribution presence, we have the potential to grow 2x in next three years timeframe. The flipside of having such a large product basket is that we must be cautious on areas where we should invest more vis-à-vis anticipated returns, as capital is always a scarce resource.

In the medium term, I expect this sector to benefit from various government initiatives, such as Production Linked Incentive scheme and preferential treatment for domestic manufacturers. Some of these efforts will lead to more and more technology innovation in India and be more suited to the healthcare needs of our country.