Friday, January 21, 2005
GE Health to boost work in India
Our Bureau / Bangalore
GE Healthcare, the new avatar of GE Medical Systems after its acquisition of Amersham, a diagnostics imaging firm in the UK, planned to do significant work at its research centre in Bangalore, the company’s president and chief executive officer William Castell told reporters here on Wednesday.
“This is my first visit to this centre, and I am impressed with the work they are doing,” Castell said.
Work at the facility, called John F Welch Technology Centre, one of four global research hubs for parent GE, involves a host of other areas from material science to aircraft engines. “Clearly the idea is to increase the work done here,” Castell said.
The integration of Amersham with GE Medical Systems had happened from the time it was acquired, in April 2004, and the process was now complete, a company release said. The process included cross assignments of jobs from one firm to the other.
Castell was chief executive of Amersham and after its acquisition became the head of the combined entity with a position on the board of the parent company GE Corp.
Amersham’s diagnostics products being distributed in India will be one of two divisions of GE Healthcare South Asia and called GE Healthcare Bio-Sciences, India. The other was GE Healthcare Technologies -- South Asia, the release said.
In 2004, GE Healthcare South Asia had total sales of $352 million, including exports of some $240 million. The South Asia business covered India, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives, said V Raja, president and chief executive officer of GE Healthcare Technologies.
The business had some 1,500 people in India and partnerships with companies such as Wipro, which distributed its diagnostics products.
The research centre had a staff of 2,200 and “we are always adding people”, Castell said. The company had utilised half of the 50 acres it had taken in the Export Promotion Industrial Park here. “There is certainly space to expand,” he said.