Metropolis Healthcare Ltd, the multi-national chain of diagnostics centres, has slated an investment to the tune of Rs.15 crore to come up with 15 greenfield laboratories in tier II and tier III cities including Hyderabad, Belgaum, Pondicherry, Kollam and Kottayam.

The investments are slated for this fiscal and Warburg Pincus, a leading global private equity firm, has recently invested up to $85 million. Currently the diagnostic major has two labs located at Mumbai and Bangalore. But it is a preferred referral centre for more than 10,000 laboratories, clinicians, hospitals and research institutions across 125 cities in India where it has also set up 65 labs within their premises.

The decision for the 15 greenfield project comes in after the success of its second lab in Indore which is a tier II city. The company is likely to make a total investment of around Rs.15 crore in this fiscal year.

The new laboratories will come up in the cities and towns from where Metropolis is already collecting samples and have a customer base. But now instead of bringing the samples to centre’s like Mumbai or Chennai they will be processed in the referral labs itself.

Metropolis Healthcare has recently invested around 50 lakh at its Indore greenfield laboratory. The Indore lab is spread across an area of 3,000 square feet and offer over 100 tests. With these investments, it becomes the first national level laboratory to open a standalone lab facility with capabilities for routine and specialized testing including hormones, vitamins and tumour markers. For instance, the labs at Indore caters to Indore city as well as the adjoining districts and towns like Ujjain and Devas.

“We have already selected 10 locations for South and West India and five locations for North India. With greenfield labs, Metropolis will be entering the tier II and tier III cities and this will result in high growth for the company,” said Ameera Shah, managing director & CEO, Metropolis Healthcare Ltd.

Metropolis has had many national firsts to its credit: It was the first laboratory to introduce HIV testing, branch DNA technology and real-time sequential detection systems to India, and first to offer turnkey laboratory management services for hospitals and stand-alone labs there.

Metropolis Healthcare Ltd. was founded by Dr Sushil Shah in 1981. Its diagnostic centres are spread across India, Sri Lanka, South Africa and Middle East. It provides around 4500 specialized tests ranging from oncology to genetics, molecular biology and immunoassays. It was also recently voted as the sole recipient of the Frost & Sullivan - 2010 India Excellence in Healthcare Awards - Diagnostic Services Company of the Year.

The diagnostic provider has been certified by CAP, US FDA for the Site Management Offices (SMO) services. The NABL accreditation and ISO 15189 certified chain of laboratories has over 550 collection centres and is a preferred laboratory for providing quality testing to over 50, 000 doctors in India.