Thyrocare, one of India’s leading diagnostic services providers, said its revenue has jumped substantially in the July-September quarter owing to strong demand for COVID-19 testing.
A day after competitor Metropolis Healthcare reported a 25% year-on-year jump for the three months, Thyrocare reported a growth of 37% in its revenue.
Sequentially, Metropolis’ September quarter revenue nearly doubled over the previous three months (April-June), while the sequential increase was even higher for Thyrocare at 171%.
The company said it is planning to expand its facilities given that the pandemic may not be over as quickly as initially thought. It currently has a capacity of conducting 400 RT-PCR tests for COVID-19, and is in the process of bringing online a similar facility in Gurgaon.
“Anticipating more workloads in quarters to come, we are also creating facilities with COVID testing facilities in Bangalore and Kolkata as well, to meet the demand that may arise due to prolonged pandemic. With non COVID tests coming back to track, we anticipate a need for more capacity and facilities,” the company said.
It said it has done more than 4.00 Lakh COVID-19 RT-PCR tests and more than 3.20 Lakh COVID antibody tests as on 30.09.2020.
The company also said it could have reported greater numbers if many local authorities had not tried to prevent diagnostic labs from conducting COVID-19 tests.
There have also been complaints of false positives and false negatives, which led to rumor-mongering and conspiracy theories.
“..the company had to face many surprising and shocking blocks in the business by those who did not understand the virus and its characteristics of becoming positive to negative or vice versa, by many government functionaries, municipal commissioners.
“We were reprimanded by a few without even issuing a show cause notice and without even giving a proper opportunity of being heard.
“We are happy that on the direction of the Hon’ble Bombay High Court, all the orders passed discretionally by these administrators are now withdrawn, and we are allowed to operate in all parts of the country,” it said, adding that without such hindrances, the results would have been “much better” for the July-September period too.
It said it will release the final numbers after they are checked by the audit committee of the board of directors.
