In a medium-sized hospital somewhere in Karnataka, an operation for gall-bladder stones is underway. As it reaches a critical stage, the lead surgeon stretches out his left hand for the Operating Room nurse, who places a forceps with a needle and thread mounted on it. Without turning his head to look at the nurse, the surgeon begins sewing up the internal wound inside the patient’s abdomen. The needle with a suitable piece of thread, which began its journey from a Healthium Medtech factory, has reached its final destination. This is not an isolated event; it is repeated each and every day in as many as 18,000 hospitals all over India. Also noteworthy is that there are thousands of varieties of surgical needles used for different types of operations, most of which are produced at the Healthium factories. The story began in December 1992, when two Bengaluru-based entrepreneurs joined hands to establish Sutures India, the earlier avatar of Healthium India. The two friends, L.G. Chandrasekhar and S. Subramanium, were both working in leading medical device MNCs; they quit their respective companies to start their own venture. Till then, Chadrasekhar was working with Smith & Nephew, while Subramanium was in Johnson & Johnson. During the next two decades, Sutures India acquired the technological expertise to produce high quality surgical materials, mainly needles and sutures, and the marketing muscle to spread their wings in every part of India. Their success and consistency over a long period attracted the attention of major private equity players – TPG and CX Partners. In 2012, CX Partners invested Rs200 crore in return for a 30 per cent stake and the following year, TPG acquired a 23 per cent stake in exchange for Rs147 crore. Barely five years later, Apax Partners acquired its stake, along with the entire promoter’s stake, paying a staggering Rs1,900 crore, for a total 99.8 per cent stake. With the promoters having made a complete exit subsequently, Healthium is now a totally professionally managed company. With these resources, Sutures India made a series of small acquisitions in the developed markets and expanded its product portfolio, to include a wide range of surgical and medical essentials as well as other consumable items. These products are marketed through an extensive network spread over more than 500 districts all over India. They are also exported to 70-80 countries in Europe, South America Africa, Asia and the Middle East. In May 2017, the company’s name was changed to Healthium Medtech, because it was now offering many more products apart from needles and suture materials. “The rationale behind the rebranding exercise was meant to create a new identity to reflect the company’s evolutionary process,” says Anish Bafna, who has been the CEO of Healthium for the past two-and-a-half years. “The name serves to highlight our vision and ability to create solutions that serve the Operations Theatre (OT), which go beyond our existing portfolio to offer a much larger basket of products”. Before taking up his current appointment, Bafna was working in Japan with Baxter, a global MNC dealing in medical devices and equipment. Healthium’s first purchase was in 2009, when it took over Truskin Gloves, which was renamed as Healthium OEM in 2018. This company was located at the Kochi SEZ and was manufacturing gloves for the export market. Healthium however shut down the Kochi factory and shifted the gloves manufacturing activity to their factory in Kunigal. In 2013, Healthium also established a joint venture with Mena Medical Manufacturing, to enable them to expand into the Gulf countries. A couple of years later, Sironix Medical Technologies, a Healthium subsidiary based in Amsterdam, gobbled up two UK-based companies, namely, Clinical Supplies Ltd (CSL) and Clinidirect Ltd (CDL). Both these companies therefore came under the Healthium fold. Finally in 2017, Healthium took over Quality Needles Pvt Ltd (QNPL), which was a subsidiary of TPG Growth.
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Healthium’s real strength lies in its research and development activities
