Dr. GSK Velu, Founder & Chairman, Neuberg Diagnostics

Technocrat, serial entrepreneur, Healthcare industry expert – Dr GSK Velu is all these, and more. More importantly, Dr Velu is a visionary and a man who has his heart in the right place his chief aim in life is to make healthcare available & affordable to the common man across the nations. A self-made man who lost out on many golden opportunities in life due to circumstances beyond his control, which would have made a lesser human bitter but Dr Velu chose to follow his heart and render yeomen’s service to fellow humans for over 30 years now with dedication, hard work and passion.
Dr. Velu has been awarded several recognitions and has been named as “parallel entrepreneur” by Forbes and “first generation serial entrepreneur” by many.
Dr.Velu’s vision, determination and futuristic approach to make healthcare accessible and affordable to one and all made it possible for the tens of thousands of people across the globe to have cost effective access to medical technology, diagnostic services, eye care, dental care, super speciality hospital care and dialysis services.

Your journey into healthcare since inception?
My upbringing is from a very small village and the healthcare infrastructure at that point of time in my native was very poor.  I understood the drawbacks arising due to lack of affordable healthcare services when I was a child and I believe somewhere in the back of my mind I have always been fascinated with the healthcare industry. And maybe from the selection of my subjects during my college life to my first job in a healthcare company was subconsciously a part of my fondness for this field.
I firmly believe that a good healthcare policy covering physical health, health infrastructure and availability of preventative care can lead a country to prosperity. In India and many developing nations across the world, healthcare technology, medical education, healthcare services & delivery are the sectors that require focus and upliftment. For last over 30 years, I have committed myself to this cause and my primary focus is to make sure that all my projects provide better technology access, advanced medical education & world class healthcare services to the masses at an affordable cost.
All my ventures since inception are healthcare focused. Starting from Trivitron, which is manufacturing & delivering highest quality Medical technology products to Healthcare providers across the Globe and have manufacturing  and R&D setups in multiple locations Globally, Maxivision Eye hospital which provides  best-in-class eye-care services, Apollo white dental chain – India’s largest chain of Dental Clinics & unique dental spas with 80+ Dental Clinics across the country, mentor & shareholder in Kauvery Group of Hospitals which cater to the super specialty healthcare needs of Middle Class and Lower Middle class population across Tamil Nadu including Tier 2 & 3 towns and recently launched Neuberg Diagnostics – a Global Pathology brand, operating in India, UAE, Sri Lanka, South Africa with actively performing 5000+ varieties of pathological tests, promoting prevention and early diagnosis, & conducting over 16 Million Tests Annually.

You are very much into Medical equipment and technology, what motivates you open diagnostics chain?
I believe that the only constant in life is change! As I mentioned, my dream has always been to make worthy additions in Healthcare Ecosystem which in-turn can benefit the population of all classes and across all geographies.
I was never away from the Diagnostics Service industry. This is my second innings and I think I am fortunate to use all my expertise to build an International Diagnostics Chain keeping the basic philosophies of Adherence to Quality, Technological advances and Customer friendly services intact. My first PathLab venture was commencement of Premier Diagnostics in 1991 partnering with my first boss. Second was co-promoting Metropolis from 1998 to 2015. Since my exit in Year 2015, I see lot of changes in this sector. It has become crowded and quality and ethics are being compromised. I want to bring an approach of transparency in whatever we do.
With Neuberg Diagnostics, we brought together the extra ordinary expertise in diagnostics and we stand for one central principle of “Transparent Ethical Patient Centric Approach” and will bring state of the art technology in Clinical Laboratory Medicine within reach of common man in India and in all developing countries.

What is the philosophy of Neuberg Diagnostics? 
Our vision is to win the battle against disease by making the most advanced diagnostics tests accessible to every common man across the globe. Philosophy of Neuberg Diagnostics is to unite like-minded & leading labs across different cities of the developing world and emerging markets, have the best world class technologies available for screening, follow all the regulatory norms and have a human connect with every patient by listening to them and by being transparent in whatever we do! Neuberg is adapting new generation advanced techniques from developed markets like US and Europe and we are also establishing strategic collaborative ventures with like-minded partners. We aim to Promote Wellness and Early Diagnosis as structured disease management programs for rare diseases using the most advanced technologies and best-in-sector human resources assisted by data science and AI tools while ensuring Ethical Principles are intact. Neuberg Diagnostics aims to become the most respected and trusted Diagnostic Partner in Asia & Africa by deployment of new-gen technology operated by best-in-class laboratory professionals.

Elaborate your future expansion plans?
Neuberg Diagnostics is a new-generation PathLab Alliance with a rich history and extraordinary technical expertise. Through alliances with legacy brands like Anand lab- Bangalore, Supratech – Ahmedabad, Ehrlich lab – Chennai, Global- South Africa, and Minerva Labs – Dubai, Neuberg Diagnostics come with a PathLab experience of over 200 years. Apart from the coming together of leading players in this field, we are also launching new laboratories in Hyderabad, Vijayawada in India and already started a lab in Cochin. We are looking at expanding our Collection Centre network to 300 + in the country within the next 12 months. We are also evaluating a direct presence through partnerships in USA and Europe. We have entered into a partnership with a reputed group in Sri Lanka to set up a reference lab at Colombo.

What are your expectationsto the Union Health Budget 2018?
In the Budget we need policies promoting Insurance Coverage for Out Patient Diagnostics Services, Higher Tax exemption for Annual preventive Heath checkup’s and increased focus for PPP in the Diagnostics Services sector.
What are the latest innovations in Diagnostics sector and future of diagnostics Industry?
New Generation Pathologists are keen to adopt new areas in diagnostics like Genomics (using genetics to diagnose complex hereditary diseases), Metabolomics (diagnostics at the Metabolite level), Proteomics (Study of Proteins for Infectious Diseases/ Cancers) & Digital Pathology / Radiology to enhance personalized medicine and drive companion diagnostics and patient care. Clinical Labs are looking to Big Data Analytics to provide meaningful insights in prognostic & diagnostic information to aid effective treatment protocols through Theranostics 