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WE DID OUR BIT IN REMOVING STIGMA AROUND COVID-19 TESTING, SAYS MEDALL CEO ARJUN ANANTH

In an exclusive conversation with NewsX as part of NewsX India A-List, Arjun Ananth, CEO of Medall, spoke to us about his company and the work they have been doing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Medall CEO Arjun Ananth started by talking about the journey, significant initiatives and achievements of Medall over the years. “Medall started […]

In an exclusive conversation with NewsX as part of NewsX India A-List, Arjun Ananth, CEO of Medall, spoke to us about his company and the work they have been doing during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Medall CEO Arjun Ananth started by talking about the journey, significant initiatives and achievements of Medall over the years. “Medall started 11 years ago and it was funded predominantly by a private equity fund called People Capital. When an entrepreneur called, Raj Venkataraman approached the fund with an idea to consolidate radiology diagnostic assets predominantly in the South. Medall did around 26 acquisitions, rolling up various radiology assets. In around 2015, the company entered the pathology business. Soon after, they won a large contract with the Andhra Pradesh government, to manage the public-private partnership in the state, which gave a huge boost to the blood testing and pathology business. That’s how the company evolved,” he said, adding, “It is still owned by People Capital. Somewhere towards the end of 2018 and early 2019, the erstwhile promoters and CEO decided to take a backseat. Since I was quite familiar with the company and had been on the board for four years prior to that, I decided to step in as the full-time CEO of Medall. This happened sometime around November last year.”

Speaking about the presence of Medall in the country, Ananth said, “Medall is definitely present in the five states in the South—Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh—with a presence in Pondicherry. In the North, we have a large presence in Jharkhand and have just entered Uttar Pradesh”. Regarding expansion plans, he added, “Going forward, most of our expansion will be in the South. Personally, I see a lot of opportunities and our strategy is to go deeper compared to wider, so you’ll see us aggressively expanding in the South”.

Talking about collaborations with industry bodies, Arjun said, “Medall has collaborated with various institutes. Right now, we are collaborating with an artificial intelligence firm, where we are pushing for some AI initiatives in radiology. During the height of the pandemic, we were involved with the Siddha Institute and all four of their branches. Essentially, we were being used as a diagnostic company to test the efficacy of Siddha drugs for treating Covid. From what I’ve heard, they were fairly instrumental in Tamil Nadu in a big way, in preventing the widespread of Covid.”

The company CEO then gave details about testing with Medall. “We got our ICMR approval in May to test for Covid. We have done over 350,000 tests till date. We were the largest testers for Covid in the South during the pandemic. We were the last to enter but became the biggest in a short span. Having tested over 350,000 samples, a couple of weeks ago, we took a fairly sizeable step where we said, ‘let’s make this whole business consumer-centric. Let’s encourage people to come and test.’ People don’t want to get tested because they’re scared of the result. We said, ‘let’s remove cost as a major factor’ and reduced our prices to less than Rs 1,000 per test, whereas the competition is still at Rs 2,400-2,500. We said, ‘let’s just go ahead and do something for the people’.”

Medall has contributed a lot to the country during Covid. Talking in depth about that, Ananth said, “We were very closely involved with the government in helping them test. Tamil Nadu was amongst the top three states in total testing. Medall played an instrumental part in partnering with the government and testing those samples. One of the unique features of the core program in Tamil Nadu was the fever clinics that they ran. They set up fever clinics in small localities, where they identified people with a symptom and had them tested for Covid. Medall partnered with the government in helping them set up these fever clinics as well. So, Medall has been closely involved with the government and people. As they learn more about Covid, they realise that it’s not only the RT-PCR test but also the CT scan which is important to understand the extent to which Covid has affected a person. Being an integrated diagnostic player, we had packages where a person could have the RT-PCR test, a chest CT scan and a group of blood tests. We have made it easy for hospitals as we don’t want to waste time when people are rushed into them. They had a package of information which was readily available at the time of admission. We innovated around some of the aspects and played a role in removing some of the stigma around testing.”

Ananth also spoke about the Chennai Reference Lab. “Our Chennai Reference Lab is a state-of-the-art lab. It was set up around four years ago. It is virtually capable of doing every test that is required on the blood testing side for an individual. We have multiple departments in the lab: biochemistry, dermatology, microbiology and so on. We have experts who have joined us from various other organisations, who work with us very closely in the lab. Anyone who has stepped into the lab has gone away mightily impressed and it’s something that we’re extremely proud of. Recently, we enhanced the test menu of the lab. Today I can confidently say that whatever test a person needs in this part of the country, it is available with us.”

Talking further about the range of tests offered by Medall, Arjun Ananth said, “We offer over 1,000-1,500 tests. We recently launched a package that’s aimed at pregnant women. We designed the package to help women know what tests to get done, when and why they should be done. It’s like planning for the nine months so you don’t have to worry because you can get a reminder of the tests and we will come home and do it for you. That’s something fairly unique and we are proud of it. Besides that, we do all the advanced tests that any hospital or medical practitioner may require.”

Lastly, Ananth spoke about what sets Medall apart from its competitors. “What makes Medall different is the fact that it is an integrated diagnostics company. I’ll give a few examples. Most of our competitors offer only an X-ray, CT-scan, MRI or they offer all the blood tests. Medall offers both. I think, as consumers think about preventive health checks and wellness, integrated diagnostics has a huge role to play. For example, if you have to do a master health check, it’s not sufficient that you just do a panel of blood tests. It’s important to do an ultrasound to know whether there’s something wrong structurally inside any organs. For a woman, it’s very important to do mammograms once they’ve gone past a certain age. Those are very specific radiology modalities. In addition to all the blood tests, it’s important to do ultrasounds, mammograms, echocardiograms, TMPs and so on. Medall has all these facilities under one roof. It’s a one-stop shop for all preventive health needs.”

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