In a major effort to offer the Indian healthcare market high quality and affordable advanced medical equipment, GE Healthcare has expanded its manufacturing operations to produce Hi-Speed Dual slice Computed Tomography (CT) system in Bangalore.

It is the first company in the country to commence production of CTs in India. In order to market the same, GE Healthcare will partner with pharma majors which already have the sales expertise in critical care drugs. This partnership initiative would be through within a month. GE would provide extensive training for the pharma sales team to market medical equipment, company officials stated.

This CT is one of the fastest selling equipment globally and the indigenous version will be priced at Rs 90 lakh (US$ 2 lakh). The current annual production capacity is 40 CTs which would be doubled by 2012. The company has invested around US$ 1 million for the production centre that will eventually manufacture MRIs among others. India has a huge market opportunity for affordable products. We expanded our manufacturing here because of the ready availability of medical engineering prowess that would help is to provide the cost advantage, John Dineen. chief executive officer, GE Healthcare stated press conclave here.

The same product is also manufactured at its unit in China which has a capacity of 200 machines. To begin with, the India produced CTs will be for local markets before GE gears to tap the ASEAN and South Asia markets from here, added Dineen.

Products like MAC 400, Lullaby baby warmers and Tejas XR 6000 x-ray system are already developed at Bangalore. With regards to the CT production, 70 per cent of the components will be imported and the remaining are sourced out of 15-20 suppliers in India, said V Raja, president & CEO, GE Healthcare South Asia.

“New hospitals and diagnostic centers in tier II and III towns are looking for affordable and reliable systems. Currently, CTs and MRIs, are imported and lead to delays. Now these hospitals in tier II and III towns will have access to reasonably priced equipment. We are also looking to redesign some equipment to cater to the space requirements of smaller hospitals, said Dineen.

In 2009, the company had committed around Rs 100 crore for the research and development lab at the John Welch Technology Centre, Bangalore which focuses on ultrasound, X-rays CT, MRI, life sciences and surgical sciences. The large R&D centre would see upscale of product design and development of many more high-end systems in India, said Dineen.

In 1991, the company opened its first manufacturing centre for imaging at Bangalore which is a major hub for GE globally. Last year, it set-up a dedicated plant which is a centre of excellence with a 300 unit capacity for production of GoldSeal standard hi-speed single/dual slice CTs that adhere to US FDA standards for domestic and exports markets. These systems are priced 30% lower than the new CTs. This unit is the only refurbishing centre globally for this equipment.

GE Healthcare in India & China accounts for 10 per cent (US$ 1.5 billion) revenues to the total US$ 17 billion of the parent company in the US.