DR. RAJEEV GAUTAM
QUALITY MANUFACTURED MEDICAL DEVICES
Abrief about yourself and your organization
Dr Rajeev Gautam is a visionary leader and professional with around 30 years of work experience. A doctorate from IIT Roorkee in Biotechnology, with a successful track record in healthcare industry focussed in managing P&L, large business, business strategies, energising teams and ensuring operational effectiveness for the organization.
Dr Gautam has effectively demonstrated cross functional leadership and has collaborated with varied teams like marketing, supply chain, finance with his skills in change management, general management strategy, business management for India and SAARC nations, which has been instrumental in growing the business. He is perceived as a quick decision maker, critical thinker and result oriented humble leader, proficient at fostering strong inter-personal relationship across the organization.
He has been honoured with titles – Diagnostic Icon during COVID-19 Pandemic in Healthcare Crusaders Awards 2020, Strategy Visionary Leader 2019 by Transformance, Leadership Icon of the Year 2018 by USB Forums, and Great Manager Awards by Economic. Times in Senior Leaders Category in 2017.
I firmly believe that the key learning from this situation is that 'Health and self-care I'd of utmost importance for everyone'.
HORIBA India, a subsidiary of HORIBA Limited Japan, with a workforce of approximately 500 employees, was incorporated in the year 2006 in India with Corporate office in Delhi, operating in five different business segments – Automotive, Process and Environmental, Medical, Semiconductor and Scientific. The company currently has 7 different offices across India. HORIBA India, with its strong presence in India has been successfully doing export business with SAARC nations like - Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives & has recently spread its wings in Bangladesh for Medical business. The Medical segment has dedicated reagent manufacturing factory at Haridwar and a state-of-the-art manufacturing, refurbishment, training and warehousing facility at Nagpur, Maharashtra. HORIBA Medical provides a comprehensive line of hematology, hemostasis and clinical chemistry
solutions (including analyzers, reagents & consumables) for use in in-vitro diagnostics. Today, more than 30,000 laboratories are using HORIBA Medical’s solutions around the world.
What has been your key learning during these unprecedented times?
The COVID 19 pandemic has put us all under arduous circumstances since year 2020. While we were getting ready for a new normal, the second wave hit us hard and deeply affected all at a personal as well as professional level. Many of us have suffered and witnessed loss of lives of our close friends and family. I firmly believe that the key learning from this situation is that ‘Health and self-care is of utmost importance for everyone’. The pandemic has also enhanced family bonding and expounded true meaning of family, care, and support for each other. At HORIBA, we consider employees as our biggest asset and we believe ourselves to be one strong united family.
Indeed, it has been challenging for all businesses to keep the wheels turning during the lockdowns since last year and we are not an exception. We have devised strategies and stayed close to our customers to ensure customer delight. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to our employees and their families whose strength and support has helped us in achieving marvellous results under all adversities.
These unprecedented times affected the healthcare industry to its core. How HORIBA is contributing to help patient care?
HORIBA has always been a pioneer in coming up with new technologies and instruments for the betterment of community and humanity. In our endeavour to improve, we are constantly working towards bringing new and innovative products. Looking into the COVID-19 scenario, we had introduced specialized products like solution for Fever Clinics which included Hand Sanitizer, Instrument Sanitizer, Temperature Monitoring Device, Hemostasis Instrument (Yumizen G200) and Microsemi CRP. HORIBA’s Microsemi CRP is a product enabled with parameters like CBC, CRP, GLR and malaria flag, which have established themselves as a potential tool for screening and monitoring of COVID-19 patients and also helps in malaria detection. We have also advanced our Yumizen H550 (6-part hematology analyzer) for the ultimate need of febrile patients. Along with the routine hematology testing, this instrument facilitates infectious screening with flags for Plasmodium falciparum, P. vivax, dengue and NLR.
We also ensured the availability of much needed parameters like D-Dimer, Ferritin, LDH, CRP to facilitate screening of COVID-19 infection and would continue to support the customers on the same in coming time. The outbreak of COVID-19 has also uncovered various challenges including the need for automation to keep up with the extensive demand of testing at laboratories & hospitals. HORIBA’s high-end hematology automation technology, HELO (HORIBA Evolutive Laboratory Organization) is a solution for every high-end, high-workload medical laboratory. It is a unique user-friendly solution which takes care of specific demographic variations that exist across different geographies. HELO has various technical aspects and additional upgradation alternatives that allow medical laboratories to upgrade themselves. As a part of HELO, we have middleware and expert validation station which connects Yumizen H1500/ H2500 analyzers range and centralizes the data management with LIS connections.
We are also planning to create a unique and interactive “Club” for our high-end hematology customers for greater customer connect and enhanced support.
What are your future endeavours to the medical industry as a leading Med Tech innovator?
Scientific enhancement has been our constant forte, in the same pursuit we have come up with evolved HABX (Hematology Analyzer Based Xchanges) which is a unique platform to enhance scientific knowledge and interaction in the field of hematology. It is a stage to exhibit and elucidate one’s opinion, case observation and findings from real time laboratory work experience and connect with pathologists and hematologists across the globe. We have also come up with a new educational initiative, HORIBA India Technical Institute (HITI) at Nagpur, with the aim to provide various specialized professional courses, conceptual understanding of modern IVD technologies and best laboratory practices.
The students at HITI will learn not only manual laboratory methods, but even modern technologies, advanced automated analyzers, Quality Management Systems & Standards and Internal Quality Audits, which will prepare them to be productive in modern laboratories and also for opportunities in the medical devices industry. We are also coming up with a state-of-the-art “Demo lab” at our Nagpur facility which will provide a live demonstration of our instruments at work. On the acquisition front, to expand the laboratory chemistry offerings, HORIBA, Ltd. and HORIBA Instruments has acquired MedTest Holdings, Inc. (composed of MedTest Dx, Inc., Pointe Scientific, Inc., Clinitox Diagnostix, Inc., and Medical Laboratory Solutions, Inc.). The acquisition will combine the complementary innovative technology offerings of the HORIBA Medical with MedTest Dx technology, Clinitox, and Pointe Scientific’s R&D and manufacturing capabilities, with particular expertise in FDA 510K and CLIA clearances, to address the multidisciplinary requirements of IVD testing customers. MedTest Dx is a world Leader in chemistry reagents manufacturing and diagnostic solutions for decentralized clinical testing, providing a combination of screening instruments and reagent manufacturing in medical technologies, with a wide portfolio of products for IVD testing laboratories.