Ameera Shah, Promoter and Executive Chairperson, Metropolis
Three years after diagnostic chain Metropolis Healthcare’s promoters made a strategic shift and brought in a professional to run operations, the diagnostic chain looks to grow by strengthening its technology backbone, even as it consolidates its local presence and targets ₹2,500 crore in revenues in the next three years, top management of the company said.The diagnostic industry is in a stable place, having weathered pressures from Covid-19, geo-political issues, fluctuations in seasonality and climate change, for example, said Ameera Shah, Metropolis Promoter and Executive Chairperson. And this becomes a good time to pause and reflect on the operations and where it is headed, Shah told businessline, after five challenging years.“There is a sense of more stability in the industry. And now there is a sense of confidence to say, ‘Look, we can build even stronger from here’. We spent from FY21 to FY25 in a space of expansion of not only technology, but also of infrastructure. So we added almost 50 per cent capacity, more labs. We really started building out that infrastructure for a larger play. FY26 to FY29 is a period of consolidation. And while we continue to expand, obviously, the organic growth will be even faster, consolidation from a perspective of no lab expansion, but really accelerating our collection centres,” Shah said.Organised sectorMetropolis is the second largest diagnostic chain in the country, and also among the top two in most of the countries that they are in Africa, she said. The chain has 209 labs and 5000 plus centres, across 750 towns and with revenues of about ₹1,650 crore, she said, adding that growth had come from actual demand in a scientific way and not from pushing products.The diagnostic industry is unorganised, and is going to continue to organize, she said, as the organised segment accounts for about 15 per cent of the overall market, and the top four or five chains account for about six per cent of the market. Currently, the market is about $11 billion, and is likely reach $28.5 billion by 2034.Tech transformationSurendran Chemmenkotil, Metropolis Managing Director, said the company projects a revenue of over ₹2,500 crores, in about three years. Network expansion will be a priority, he said, and the effort now is to go deeper into towns. Inorganic growth is one of the pillars of growth, but it will be selective, he added.“Metropolis will completely transform into a technology company in the next two to three years period. All the processes in the company, which is the back end processes, the customer touching processes, everything will be moving into a fully automated systems. We will bring in AI, largely to improve productivity and workflows,” he said.Interventions led by AI will improve productivity, workflows and improve turnaround time, he said, adding that all of it was work in progress. On how it would impact human resources, he said, “We have about 12-13 per cent attrition. We can always not backfill for this attrition. And secondly, we have about 10-12 per cent volume growth. So, at any given point of time, an opportunity of 25 per cent workforce is always available.”Published on September 5, 2026
