Pharmaceutical and healthcare products firm Morepen Laboratories is gearing up for an exponential growth in its diagnostic devices business with self care growing in prominence because of the pandemic.

The company is now looking to upgrade capacity at its plant in Baddi, Himachal Pradesh, as the trend of diagnosing at home is only expected to become an habit across households.

At present, the diagnostic devices business account for 27 per cent of its turnover.

Morepen Laboratories has products such as blood pressure monitors, glucometers, blood glucose test strips, digital thermometer, nebulisers and oximeters in its portfolio.

The surge in demand for such devices came particularly after the onset of Covid-19 as fears of contracting the virus and the lockdown led to people staying at home.

Another factor that has contributed to their growth has been e-commerce or the online channel which has brought them only closer to the customers.

“When we started selling glucometers in India, we were selling around 2,000-3,000 per month. We are now installing 1-1.5 lakh per month and have (cumulatively) done almost 50 lakh installations. However, looking at the fact that there are 75 million active diabetic patients in the country, we have not even touched the tip of the iceberg. What we are now witnessing is that amid Covid-19, glucometer testing at home has gone up further, and people are testing sugar levels even 3-4 times a day,” Sushil Suri, chairman, Morepen Laboratories, told The Telegraph.

Its not in glucometers alone, where the company has seen such a solid growth. Even in blood glucose test strips which is an essential accompaniment, it has seen demand rising from 8-10 lakh strips a month around 5-6 years ago to around 1.5 crore now.

For the third quarter ended December 31, 2020, Morepen Laboratories saw a 99 per cent growth in glucometers while it stood at 210 per cent in the case of blood pressure monitors.

Similarly, the turnover from the diagnostics devices business increased 104 per cent over the same period in the previous year. Overall, the nine-month revenue exceeded that of the previous full year.

“We are now rightly placed as a brand…We are trying to gear up production of glucometers, BP monitors, thermometers, and oximeters. Morepen Laboratories also has a strong service network across the country. The trend that we are currently witnessing will sustain even in a post-Covid environment," Suri added, while hinting that as some of these products become more mainstream across households, their demand will continue to stay strong.