GE Healthcare has slated an investment of Rs 100 crore to set up an advanced research lab in Bangalore. The lab will be established at the John Welch Technology Centre in Whitefield and covers an area of 50,000 sq ft to develop global products.

With this Rs 100 crore funding, the total investment made by the company in India for this fiscal is Rs 300 crore. These investments are for the company's new business model 'Healthymagination' which focuses on low cost, high quality products that can be affordable for patients in the emerging markets.

The new lab will focus on designing products that are developed in India for the global markets. The company has set a target of over 100 products in the medical devices and life sciences space including Akta chromatography instrument. Some of these medical products have already hit the Indian market that includes the MAC 400, Lullaby baby warmers and Tejas XR 6000 x-ray system.

The objective of the company is to decrease cost, increase the access, enhance quality and patient safety, said Ashish Shah, general manager, Healthcare Technologies, GE Healthcare.

"Globally, the effort has been to drive the healthcare business in the markets of India and China. This has seen the company invest substantially even during tough times in both technology and human resources. We are working on various technologies in India covering ultrasound, X-rays CT, MRI besides life sciences and surgical sciences," he said.

The company already has personnel strength of 1,200 and is gearing up to romp up its strength by another 70. The candidates will be a mix of mechanical, electronics and software background. "Attracting talent has been relevantly easy although we have set high standards in hiring. There will be a mix of fresh graduates and experienced personnel, said Shah.

From being an urban premium company, we have now redefined our attention to target the rural market which need much of the technology to access healthcare diagnosis at an early stage to have affordable treatment, said Shah.

The company is looking at augmenting its engineering presence in India and China. It has 1,500 people in the dragon country and over 5,000 engineers in India. This indicates the importance of the Indian market for its future growth efforts, said Shah. Over the next five years it will look at doubling the manpower. In the next three years it will have the entire range of India-focused products rolling of the facilities from here.