Suresh Vazirani

About
Suresh Vazirani, Chairman & Managing Director, Transasia Bio-medicals Ltd., is an entrepreneur
who is building assiduously a global MNC in In-vitro Diagnostics out of India. He is a visionary who
pioneered the diagnostics space in India and built Transasia Bio-medicals into India's leading In- vitro
Diagnostic player.
What really drives him and gives immense satisfaction is the goal of building a Healthier and Happier
world by making high-quality diagnostics affordable and accessible to the masses not just in India but
emerging markets worldwide. Not surprising, considering if not for an accidental twist, he would have
been a practicing monk.
In a chance encounter at one of the reputed Mumbai hospitals where he had accompanied Rajmohan
Gandhi to meet Jayaprakash Narayan who was being treated there, he saw a lot of critical medical
equipment not available due to frequent break-downs. To make matters worse, with most being
imported, sales service was a major challenge. He then and there decided to solve the challenge and
founded Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd. with a measly investment of Rs. 200 with a good Samaritan
friend helping with a Rs. 1,00,000 loan. The young electrical engineer has never looked back since
then as Transasia, under his watch grew from a distributor of imported medical equipment to being a
global player active in 100 countries through its 14 subsidiaries. It started manufacturing as early as
1991, realizing delivering affordable diagnostics was difficult with imported medical equipment. In
India, the company's name is synonymous with In-vitro Diagnostics with a formidable network of
sales and service professionals spanning the width and breadth of the large country.

His Journey
Suresh Vazirani was just 21 when he sacrificed a corporate career to work for social causes inspired
by the Sarvodaya Movement. The movement comprised the collective efforts of Mahatma Gandhi's
followers who worked to create the democratic society the freedom activist envisioned.
A young Suresh was also actively associated with Navnirman Andolan, a 1974 socio-political
movement started in Gujarat which fought against economic crisis and corruption.
One day, an incident at a hospital set Suresh on an unexpected path to becoming a healthcare
entrepreneur when Navnirman Andolan's Bihar leader Jayaprakash Narayan suffered kidney failure,
and he was admitted to a hospital.
Suresh tells SMB Story:
!!! "At the hospital, the imported dialysis machine broke down and the service engineer was
unavailable. Since I was a graduate in electrical engineering, I worked on the machine and made it
functional at the right moment." !!!
This incident made him think of the lives lost each day due to a lack of technical service for medical
devices. He felt the creation of an affordable and easily-accessible medical technology provider was
the need of the hour.
"The creation of such an organisation was more of a clarion call for service to society rather than the
object of a business enterprise," he explains, adding, "I was already 29, and looking at something to
devote my life to, I developed a conviction of improving the healthcare in India thus started Transasia
BioMedicals in Mumbai in 1979.
Suresh says he started In Vitro Diagnostics (IVD) company Transasia with Rs 250 from his own
pocket and Rs 1 lakh which he borrowed from a friend.
The funds went into starting operations as the distributor for a Japanese automated cell counter
machines. By the early 1990s, Suresh recognised the need for indigenous manufacturing and set up
his own R&D and production facilities to manufacture medical equipment such as blood analysers.
Over the years, Transasia has grown into a Rs 1,000 crore company which offers products and
solutions in biochemistry, hematology, coagulation, ESR, immunology, urinalysis, critical care,
diabetes management, microbiology and molecular diagnostics.
!!! "One test is conducted on a Transasia device every two seconds. Every year, more than 150 crore
blood tests are done on our equipment," !!! Suresh adds.

Siddhant Jain