BPL Medical Tech to scale up global presence, aims to break even in FY19

The acquisition can either be in devices or consumable space, and the company is looking at investing anywhere between Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore for this acquisition

In all likelihood, FY19 is going to be a milestone year for Goldman Sachs-backed medical device manufacturer BPL Medical Technologies.

The Bengaluru-based company, in which the Nambiar family still holds around 35 per cent stake, is expecting to break even this year. 

The firm is also zeroing in on another global acquisition as it targets to cross Rs 1,000 crore in revenue by 2022, managing director and chief executive officer Sunil Khurana told Business Standard.

Khurana, a veteran in the healthcare space who had spent almost 28 years in GE Healthcare, joined BPL Medical Technologies in August 2013 immediately after Goldman Sachs picked up around 49 per cent in the company for around Rs 110 crore. By that time, BPL Medical Technologies was already spun off as a separate unit within the BPL group. Over the years, Goldman has steadily pumped in money to this unit, thus increasing its stake to close to 65 per cent now. The company has also steadily grown since then from a revenue of mere Rs 70 crore back in 2013 to Rs 292 crore in the year ended March 31 this year. In the ongoing fiscal, the company expects to close with a revenue of Rs 400 crore, making a profit for the first time.

“A journey from Rs 70 crore to Rs 400 crore in revenues is not a small one. By 2022, we are targeting Rs 1,000 crore. For this, we will have to show a cumulative growth of 20 per cent and also a small acquisition,” said Khurana.

The acquisition, he says, can either be in devices or consumable space, and the company is looking at investing anywhere between Rs 50 crore to Rs 100 crore for this acquisition.

“Our partners (investors) are keen to invest more and go for some acquisitions. Our focus area now is not to add more products into the basket but go deeper into each product range and control a high market share,” he added.

In 2015, BPL Medical Technologies did its first overseas acquisition when it bought UK-based Penlon, a leading manufacturer of anesthesia systems and vaporisers. Since then, the company is learnt to have invested around Rs 150 crore into this 75-year-old brand which has shown its manufacturing presence in the UK. The overseas market, mostly Europe, is a small part of BPL Medical Tech’s overall revenues today with a share of around 3 per cent, which the company is expecting to raise to 20 per cent by 2022.

“We have started eyeing Nepal, Bangladesh, African nations and Eastern Europe which we believe have the potential to become large markets for us. We also want to make products that are accepted in many of these global markets,” said Khurana. “May be, 10 years down the line we can see global markets growing bigger than India in terms of revenue share. This is our aim.”

While most of Penlon’s products are US Food & Drug Administration (US FDA) certified, BPL has also started forging a number of global partnerships. It already has entered into a pact with German medical technology company Löwenstein, which builds ICU ventilators. The company has also partnered Japanese firm Atom Medical Corporation in the metal infant caring segment.

“Our focus is to get the latest products and bring low radiation doses, which is 1-20th of what Indian standard approves. We are aiming at being prominently known in our space, and are thus making products from the point of view of launching them in international markets,” he added.

In the domestic market, BPL has already established itself as a leader in the ECG segment, selling more than 10,000 units every year, commanding a market share which is higher than the combined numbers of the next 3-4 players in the segment. 

The company’s partnership with Intel almost three years ago has also given it the platform to launch Internet of Things (IoT)-enabled ECG devices. It caters mostly to the the homecare segment since the devices are also fitted with inbuilt blood glucose meters.

“The one thing which is very fascinating about BPL is the brand recall and the strong distribution network. With in-house R&D and technology collaboration with globally known players, we have now enriched the product basket, and our next mission is to go deeper into each of these segment,” added Khurana.