Diagnosing Demand

With its scalable model, tie-ups and funding, iGenetic Diagnostics hopes to make high-end molecular diagnostic technology affordable in India

- Aveek Datta

In the popular American television medical drama House, the protagonist Dr Gregory House leads a team of diagnosticians, using logic and deductive reasoning to crack medical mysteries even as his team confirms his diagnoses through elaborate medical tests. Now, the infrastructure at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey, where House practises, may support advanced diagnostics, but that’s still not the case in most hospitals in India. But a trio of former investment bankers-turned-entrepreneurs hopes to change this through their company, iGenetic Diagnostics.

iGenetic was founded in 2013 (though it launched operations only in 2015) by Arunima Patel (39), a former executive with private equity firm Actis, along with former Actis colleagues Siddharth Patodia (38) and Homer Paneri (41), who also invested in the company. iGenetic specialises in molecular diagnostics, which applies molecular biology to medical testing to provide quicker and more accurate results.

Patel is the managing director and focuses on organic growth; Paneri interfaces with pharmaceutical companies that can potentially use iGenetic’s services for drug research; and Patodia is in charge of mergers and acquisitions.

The company started with a seed capital of ₹10 crore and raised ₹9 crore from angel investors in 2015. It got its biggest round of funding in February when a health care-specific private equity fund constituted jointly by CDC Group and the Manipal Education and Medical Group (MEMG) invested around ₹130 crore with the option of investing more.

iGenetic’s services are focussed across three verticals—infections, infertility and oncology. Across these segments, the company offers specialised diagnostic facilities not easily available in other pathology labs.