Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Dr. Lal PathLabs Q4 and FY 2021 Earnings Conference Call. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Nishit Solanki of CDR India. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to Dr. Lal PathLabs Q4 and FY 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Today, we are joined by senior members of the management team, including honorable patriarch Dr. Arvind Lal, Executive Chairman, Dr. Om Prakash Manchanda, Managing Director, Mr. Bharat, CEO, Mr. Ved Prakash Goel, CFO, and Mr. Rajat Kalra, Company Secretary and Head of Investor Relations. Let me share our disclaimer. Some of the statements made on today's call could be forward-looking in nature, and the actual results could vary from these forward-looking statements. A more detailed statement in this regard is available in the results presentation, which has been circulated to you earlier and also available on the stock exchange website. I would now request Dr. Lal to share his perspectives with you. Thank you, and over to you, sir.
Thank you very much. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, and thanks for joining us today for Dr. Lal PathLabs Q4 FY 2021 Earnings Conference Call. Healthcare and practicing COVID-appropriate behavior have gained higher significance within our society in response to the persisting pandemic. Citizens are making immunity-boosting habits with vaccination a priority. Simultaneously, awareness around wellness and preventive health checkups is also building. Corporates are likely more than ever to encourage or co-opt employees to go for health check packages to manage and take responsibility of their own health. This dovetails with our aspiration of being the leading branded customer of consumer healthcare provider, offering complete diagnostic testing services with wide accessibility. As you are all aware, at this time last year, we experienced the initial phase of the lockdown, whereas this year we have had to contend with a very strongly resurgent second wave.
With cases on the rise at a higher rate than before, the need for quality testing that is both accessible and affordable has seen a commensurate increase. The strategic decisions taken by the management at the onset of this pandemic to form a dedicated task force to distinctly address the requirements for COVID and non-COVID testing respectively ensured that we were never found wanting in servicing our patients and clients at any time. It being true to our DNA, in the present scenario, we have redoubled our efforts to maintain high levels of service across the network as demonstrated last year during the first phase of the epidemic. Established national chains are better equipped on account of their scale, experience, and capability. On accuracy and reporting perspective, the DLPL brand stands heads and shoulders above the rest.
Given intrinsic investments in technology, we can monitor all our labs for every single transaction on the quality front on a near real-time basis, and thereby troubleshoot wherever and whenever the need arises. Such operational resilience is unique within an industry that is largely unregulated and fragmented. Work on further extending our testing network, enhancing the capacity and capability of existing labs has continued in the past year, as have efforts to drive efficiencies and productivity across our operations. Patient behavior too has evolved during this period with higher preference for online interaction coupled with sample collection at home. Our technology-enabled infrastructure backbone has allowed us the flexibility to make these adjustments to our model smoothly. Using our extensive network of Patient Service Centers, we have been able to scale up home collection services crucial to the management of the pandemic.
With the right vision and execution, we are geared to extend our leadership beyond the core geographies. The scale, experience, brand engagement that is possible for leading chains like DLPL is difficult to replicate readily. We believe that we have the right approach to serve the healthcare requirements of the nation and are confident of guiding our best-in-class operating model through these trying times and refocusing on the long-term agenda in the days to come. With that, I would like to hand over this call to Om to share his thoughts. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Dr. Lal. Good evening, everybody, and thank you for joining us on today's call. I would like to take this opportunity to share my thoughts on the industry, our initiatives, and the way forward. The past year has been extremely challenging year for all the stakeholders. The challenge still continues and has further gone up in the current financial year. In these trying times, we have seen our role as that of a big purpose. To the best of our ability, we have tried to continue our operations around the clock wherever required, service our patients at their doorsteps, taken care of needs of travelers, taken care of our employee welfare, and worked with various authorities to comply with various requirements.
Our leadership team has remained in constant touch with the phlebotomists, field executives, and lab operation staff to keep their morale high. The current crisis also has tested the ability of our operation model to take sudden spikes in demand and simultaneous shortage in supply. Our employees have shown a lot of resilience in these times. Given our established presence nationwide, we could play a role in scaling up the RT-PCR testing bandwidth across the country. Our network was able to accommodate the sample flow during the lockdown phase, both across the COVID and non-COVID segments. Moreover, with wider prevalence of RT-PCR testing and our enhanced home collection offering, Dr. Lal PathLabs brand could attract a newer set of patients in the B2C segment. A key feature of our pandemic SOP was to optimally use our established network infrastructure by leveraging technology.
Given how we have already embedded technology deeply into our operations, we could accommodate the transition in patient behavior from walk-ins to home collections very smoothly. Booking of collections, receiving reports, et cetera, has been very crucial during the pandemic to provide our patients with quality diagnostics they desire in extremely seamless manner. When a small lab organizes a home visit versus Dr. Lal PathLabs doing it, there is a vast difference in the hygiene quality, processes, and convenience part is way better in our case. We have around 3,700 PSCs which are geo-mapped, and thereby we are able to pool all our service requests centrally and optimize visits across the network. Talking about our overall strategy at a macro level, we continue to grow rest of India business, especially west and east regions, thereby further moving towards geographical broad-basing of revenue contribution.
Contribution from rest of India, ex-Delhi NCR, has increased and it now stands at 64.8%. Even though the contribution from Delhi NCR is getting now smaller, but we still continue to enjoy healthy margins on the back of better realization of care. Our plans to widen our footprint are on track, and very soon we will be commissioning new regional reference labs, one each at Mumbai and Bangalore. These labs will be supported by a number of satellite labs in the areas and an effective network of PSCs. Concurrently, our approach of acquiring smaller and bottom-of-pyramid teams, Greenfire, which is our subsidiary, has started now giving us meaningful business. Our efforts will continue in this direction, and this will further help us seed the clusters that we are trying to build in south and western markets.
With that, I conclude my opening remarks and would now request Bharat to take you through the operating performance of the company. Over to you, Bharat.
Thanks, Om. Good evening, everyone, and welcome to our Q4 2021 earnings call. I hope all of you are keeping safe and well. Q4 2021 was an eventful quarter with an encouraging trend month-on-month of non-COVID business recovery, with walk-in and B2C channel recovery clearly visible, along with continued robust growth in our B2B business. This enabled us registered a Q4 versus Q3 sequential growth in non-COVID business as well. As the intensity of the first wave subsided, the COVID portfolio saw a decline sequentially with respect to Q3 2020. All this cumulatively resulted in us recording a revenue of INR 431 crore with a growth of 42.9%. We served 5.9 lakh patients, a growth of 33.3%.
We carried out 4.7 lakh RT-PCR tests in this quarter. It was heartening to see our Delhi NCR region returning back to growth and rest of India continuing its strong growth momentum. Our Swasthfit program also saw an increase in contribution to 19% of non-COVID revenues, up 300 basis points from last year same quarter. Our high-end portfolio, including genomics-focused Genevolve division, continues its strong growth momentum led by focus on key therapy areas. Q4 2021 also saw us making progress on our previously stated objectives of southern width expansion, with satellite labs opening and also construction being progressed on our new reference labs. Our past few quarters efforts in southern west across both organic and inorganic are also yielding encouraging response. Southern west contribution in our business has made up 340 basis points versus last year same quarter on total business and 140 basis points for non-COVID.
In Q4 2021, we also launched our new patient app. Our other technology cutting across digital as well as lab and medical tech continues to make good progress. As we look back on FY 2021, it was indeed a challenging year operationally, but it also helped us get better, serve patients at large, leveraging our expanding geographic coverage, medical, digital, and people capabilities to enable us to progress towards our vision of being the most trusted healthcare partner enabling healthier lives. Thank you. Ved, over to you.
Thank you, Bharat. Good evening, everyone, and t hanks for being on this call today. I am now sharing some of the important financial highlights. Revenue for Q4 FY 2021 is at INR 431 crore as compared to INR 301.7 crore in last year same quarter, a growth of 42.9%. Revenue for the year FY 2021 is at INR 1,581.3 crore as compared to INR 1,330.4 crore in last year FY 2020, a growth of 18.9%. Revenue contribution from COVID RT-PCR, antibody, and allied tests in Q4 and full year FY 2021 is at 11.2% and 18.3% respectively. Out of this, allied test, that is IL-6 and D-dimer, is about 10% of our total COVID portfolio revenue in Q4 and FY 2021. Revenue realization per patient for Q4 FY 2021 is higher at INR 733 as against INR 684 for last year same period. The higher revenue realization is mainly due to COVID portfolio and higher sample per patient in our non-COVID business.
Normalized EBITDA after eliminating the impact of stock-based compensation and CSR expense in Q4 FY 2021 stood at INR 129.5 crores as compared to INR 64.2 crores reported in Q4 FY 2020, a growth of 101.7%. Full year FY 2021 normalized EBITDA stood at INR 462.6 crores as against INR 365.6 crore last year. PBT for Q4 FY 2021 is at INR 110.8 crores as against INR 45.4 crores in Q4 FY 2020, a growth of 144%. PBT for the full year FY 2021 is at INR 394.4 crores against INR 310.5 crore in last year. PAT for Q4 FY 2021 is at INR 85.1 crores as against INR 32.6 crore in Q4 FY 2020, a growth of 161%. PAT for the full year FY 2021 is at INR 296.5 crores against INR 227.6 crore in last year, a growth of 30%. Basic EPS for Q4 FY 2021 is INR 10.1 per share versus INR 3.94 in the same quarter last year. EPS for the year FY 2021 is INR 35.33 versus INR 27.42 last year.
Investments in FD and mutual funds including cash and bank balances at the end of March 31st, 2021, is at INR 985.9 crore. We are pleased to share that the board of directors of the company have approved a final dividend of 80%, that is INR 8 per equity share. With this final dividend, total dividend for the year FY 2021 is 200%, that is INR 20 per equity share. In spite of extraordinary situation and COVID-19 pandemic, we have added 15 labs and close to 600 collection centers and 2,200 PUPs in FY 2021. This includes close to 70 collection centers and around 900 PUPs added through acquisition under our subsidiary PathLabs Unifiers. Further, our efforts towards automation and digital initiatives are performing well, and we are able to optimize our margins and maintain our DSO inventories and whole supply chain under control.
That brings me to the conclusion of my opening remarks. I will now request the moderator to open the forum for Q&A. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. Participants you may press star one to ask a question. The first question is from the line of Chandramouli from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening, thanks for taking my question. My first question is on the non-COVID realization. I think the previous quarter, the non-COVID realization per patient was about INR 745. If I estimated right, this quarter seems to be around the mid INR 710-INR 715 range. Just trying to understand if there's any pattern that has changed year-over-year. Is it down to maybe different sort of mix and home collection business or the mix of tests has changed? Just trying to understand if there's anything structural there. Thank you.
Ved, do you want to take this question?
Yeah. Hi, Chandra, t his is Ved. Our realization per patient has gone up. Overall, which is in Q4, INR 733. If we take out the COVID-related patients, RT-PCR and alike tests, the realization per patient is INR 715 per patient. However, this realization is increased due to two factors. One is, of course, COVID, other than non-COVID business also shown some increase due to tests per patient has gone up. Overall, if you see the tests per patient is seeing flat, if we remove COVID RT-PCR patients out of this, our number of tests per patient has gone up. That is the main reason there is some bit of test mix change also in this quarter.
Got it, t hat's helpful. Second question
If I may broadly add to I think if I read the question carefully, I think you are trying to understand is the non-COVID revenue per patient going either downward or upward or is any impact on that, right?
That's right.
I think there are two factors that are operating on this non-COVID revenue per patient either way, okay? What happens when there is a lockdown, we have noticed that normally the routine tests, which are like sugar panel and lower realization tests, they actually tend to go down because they are somewhat discreet in nature, but high-end tests continue to remain. Once their contribution goes pattern revenue per patient going up for that quarter. Sometimes now, as we've seen, the illnesses are very, very high and doctors tend to prescribe more and more tests as they test per patient. That time also you see revenue per patient going up. The moment lockdown gets lifted up and you have more flow of non-COVID patients coming in, we tend to come back to the normal revenue per patient.
My sense is in a stable scenario, non-COVID revenue per patient will remain the same, but we have definitely seen a higher contribution of specialized tests in the last few quarters that actually is having a slightly better impact on revenue per patient.
Got it. Just to follow up to that, the higher specialized tests within a non-COVID space the past few quarters, do you think this is a byproduct of the pandemic or is this something that you think is more structural different factors?
It's actually a byproduct of, you would notice that our volume growth is not that high, and most of the volumes that have dropped are of routine tests. The moment routine tests go away, you tend to have a higher revenue per patient. It's a byproduct of multiple things, but if I were to pick up two or three factors, number one, lower volume growth, that means the contribution from high-end tests is higher. The second factor is number of tests per patient also have gone up that results into higher realization per patient. Number three also is that, especially we will talk about this as we go along, you will see some of these COVID-aligned tests, which are D-dimer, IL-6, they also have a higher realization that tends to impact our overall realization.
Got it. That's very helpful. My second question is on the second COVID wave that we've seen over the past couple of months. I think in the first COVID wave, in the June quarter last year, we saw a 35%-36% decline in volumes on the non-COVID side. Just in comparison to that period, what has been the experience in the second wave? Any context there would be very helpful.
Sorry, Om? You are here?
Sorry I was on mute. Sorry. Maybe I'll start again. I think second wave is quite different from the first wave. Most of us are quite aware through media and WhatsApp messages that are going around. I'll still try and base on my understanding, the way I see the difference between first and second waves. In second waves, we saw a lot of patients actually going to hospitalization. We also saw unfortunate, very tragic, very sad, higher death rate as well. That actually had impact on COVID-aligned tests going up. If you recall, in earlier quarters, we started talking about COVID-aligned tests. There are four or five such tests which are actually intimately mapped out. We saw a sudden spike in these tests in wave 2, which actually was to much lesser extent in the wave 1. That's a big difference I found.
I think that if I were to pick one, this is a big one.
Got it. Just last follow-up to that.
Overall, the cases are so many, so the volume of testing has been much higher in wave 2 than in wave 1.
Correct. Just a final follow-up to this. Just trying to understand, I think in the June quarter last year, there was sort of a stigma for patients to go into Patient Service Centers to get their blood samples. Is that something that's recurring now in the second wave, or do you think that stigma is something that's much lower?
No, there is no stigma to say now. I think earlier people were really hesitant to get tested. Now, I don't think that's behind us. People are still hesitant to go to a center and give their sample. They always prefer for home collection because they think, maybe rightly so, that it's much safer. We have actually tried to manage our patients through both ways, because at some point in time, we found that home collection capacity is contained. As the business had a sudden spike in demand, we really couldn't catch up to the pace, to catch up with the demand because many of our own employees also got impacted by COVID. We did try, especially in Delhi NCR, to open up dedicated collection centers only for COVID.
There was no such hesitation on the part of patients, because once we told them that it's very difficult to do home collection, we did direct them to the nearest dedicated collection center for COVID. Bharat, if you can add to this. I think we found a lot of people coming to our centralized collection centers as well, right?
Yes, indeed, Om. We saw good traffic in our CDC centers, as we call them.
True.
That was a very large portion of what we collected for COVID RT-PCR samples. Yes. The only large requests for home collection were from people who are really positive or from senior citizens. Otherwise, rest of them would come to CDC without any problem.
Got it, t hat's very helpful. Thank you very much, (mohammed).
Thank you. I request to all the participants, please restrict to two questions per participant. If time permits , please come back in the question queue for follow-up questions. The next question is from the line of Neha for JP Morgan. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. My first question is on the non-COVID-19 recovery that was happening in the fourth quarter. Given we didn't have a national lockdown during the second wave. Is it fair to say that the entire recovery has been really similar, or did we see a similar impact like we saw last year on the non-COVID-19 business this time also?
You mean, say, when the current lockdown, which is not a drastic lockdown as we saw last year, right?
Yes.
That was a national lockdown. I think it's a good question. I think the impact that we had last year on non-COVID was very severe. To say that in this lockdown, there is no impact on non-COVID, that's not true. We have seen a depression in our non-COVID flow as well. To me, that's not really captured in Q4 because of, I think Maharashtra saw it in March. Delhi saw it end of March and early April. Just a short answer to your question is, if there's a lockdown, is there any adverse impact on non-COVID business? Answer is yes. Is it that severe as it was last year? Answer is no.
Okay. It could be more depending, we could leave that number would change. I can't assume that that impact is similar to the last time.
Yeah. At least patients are still allowed for essential services, t hey can still go out. Last year it was very difficult. Actually, people were sitting at home. This time people are cautious, but they are still coming out to procure tests. That's it.
Understood.
I think still very difficult to comment as to how it is going to pan out.
Yes f air enough. My second question is on this entire home collection business. You did mention in your opening remarks that there was month-on-month recovery on the non-COVID side, both in the walk-in and the B2C. If you could just give us a sense of how much did the home collection come off at least when it comes to state of normal in the March quarter, and if that helps us in terms of post-COVID, what could be a normalized home collection run rate?
Right. Bharat, do you want to take this question?
Sure, Om. First of all, on the B2C side, we saw a good recovery coming through Jan, Feb to March on the lab walk-in and the PSCs side of the business. Number two, the home collection business, it depends actually on the COVID-19 waves. There's a steady state of business, which we have seen about 2.5x. We don't give out channel-wide split of revenue at this stage, so I'll be constrained by that guidance. Yes, we saw a sharp increase, about 2.5 times of what normally we would do in home collection. That run rate continues to remain on a steady basis even now. What we have done, like Dr. Om mentioned in his opening speech, is that we have been able to leverage our collection center network to further augment this upsurge which we saw.
We take the leads, provide it to them, and they do the home collections at a nearby point.
At the last mile being handed by them, and we monitor the service level centrally.
Just to add to what Bharat is trying to say. Neha, can you hear me?
Yes, I can.
Hello. There are four main revenue streams. One is home collection, second is walk-ins, third is through collection centers, and fourth is our pickup point. Whenever there is a lockdown, the worst affected is walk-ins because people hesitate to come to a large format where there is a bit of a crowd. Lots of that channel tends to shift to two main other channels. One is home collection. People prefer home collection, but the entire thing does not shift to home collection. Home collection may be Delhi NCR or Bengaluru, but far-flung area, it actually tends to shift to collection center. Collection center is a small format. It's about 150 sq ft area. There's not too much crowd out there. Walk-in is the worst affected. Benefit flows into collection center, and it flows into home collection.
That's the way normally what happens when there's a lockdown. When the lockdown restrictions actually get lifted up, people are getting less anxious. We have seen walk-ins coming back as well, and that is the impact we saw in Q4. Suddenly with wave two happened, and then we are back to square one.
Understood. Sorry, forgive me, o ne last question. Based on the employee cost in this quarter, is this a normalized number that we should be assuming, or is there any one-off in this quarter's numbers?
Neha, this is usual. We haven't taken any one-off item. I think you may be referring to new wage code, which is not yet factoring. Settings like that last year, as it was not usual year as increments and all that stuff was not fully factored for the full year. This is truly not representative of what usually we have on our personal cost basis.
Understood. Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shyam Srinivasan from ICICI Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, just wanted to listen on the COVID revenue. At current prices, is it at EBITDA margin level that this is dilutive for the overall consolidated margins or we are actually able to make consolidated margin leveraging?
I think I'll take this question. It's a great question, and I think what has actually happened, I've tried to analyze over a period of last 12 months. There was a period when we had a sudden fall in our non-COVID business. At that time, we were looking at COVID business in its entirety. We just looked at from gross revenue till EBITDA. As non-COVID revenue started coming back, we actually had a very good operating leverage in the system. If you study our P&L, we have close to 48%-50% of our cost structure is very fixed in nature. At a gross margin level, we are not worse off even at current prices. If we are able to leverage our current infrastructure, like the space, people, logistics, we are able to manage it very well.
I think, plus with the revenue going up and plus couple of other factors like we saw in wave 2, you do home collection, you go for one person. We found that number of samples collected per visit per person also was very high that time. That also helped us. Number of tests per patient also per visit also high, that also helped us. We actually could use some of this leverage to manage the margin better. If you take COVID business in isolation, well, somebody can say, yes, it is dilutive, but if you take it along with the rest of the business that we have, so we are able to leverage it better. We are able to manage the result so far.
Okay, got it. That's very useful.
That will happen if the non-COVID business does not go down, then there will be a challenge. I think we have recovered quite a bit of non-COVID. If you go back a couple of quarters back, we used to say that we have not allowed any dilution of EPS on non-COVID because we realized early in the year itself that if you don't put focus on non-COVID, it's going to become challenging. That has really paid us well during the year.
Okay, g ot it. Thank you. Secondly, on the non-COVID business, you mentioned that there is some impact because of the lockdown. Is it fair to assume that the business will be below normal level currently, late in Q1 financial?
Actually, it's very difficult to say. I know you're trying to ask more towards the recent wave. My general understanding is that in healthcare, if the demand is lost today, doesn't mean demand is completely lost. People are delaying it, but unfortunately, in healthcare, you can't really avoid sometimes certain things. They tend to come up. People are waiting and watching. Now I know fortunately positivity rate is coming down, cases are coming down. As it opens up, we do believe that it will come back. I'm talking from the experience of the last four quarters, because we also panicked a little bit in the first quarter when the non-COVID fell as it was going to happen. I did see recovery happening, and it was not only completely new demand.
It was actually old demand which could not be serviced in the first quarter came back in Q2. I'm not sure if I see some depression in tails in this week and I will say, "No, this is going to be trend going forward." I think there's always some recovery of non-COVID demand coming back later on as well. As I mentioned that week-wise fluctuations are so high, it's very difficult to actually tell a pattern. Over a longer period, I think non-COVID will come back. I don't think we'll lose this demand.
Sure, sir. Just a follow-up to that, sir. In the last quarter four, we had more or less flat kind of revenue because of the impact from the COVID-19 first wave. On that base, we have grown around 26% odd this year in this quarter. Now if I look at FY 2021, we have a volume decline of around 3%-4% in the non-COVID-19 business. Assuming that the things become normal sooner, can we expect the growth can actually be very high times like we have seen in quarter four for FY 2022? Just qualitatively, if you can.
For FY 2022. Yeah, relatively, in terms of tailwinds, yes, clearly there is a base advantage. Q1 is so low, it will definitely benefit into the growth. I think the recovery started in Q3 onwards. Definitely to that extent, there will be an advantage to the non-COVID business growth this year in FY 2022. We also have to see how lockdown really happens, because in fact, when we were sitting in the month of March, early March, we never anticipated that there's going to be a wave two and it's going to impact the whole thing. As I mentioned, the moment we have a very strict lockdown, non-COVID business does go down. The moment restrictions are lifted up, it tends to come back. It's very difficult for me to actually project a trajectory of COVID for next few months.
Non-COVID business in terms of headwind will all depend on how COVID trajectory goes. Overall base advantage definitely is there this year for non-COVID.
Got it. Sir, lastly, just one question. In terms of your samples per patient mix, that has been consistently improving over the years. This quarter, it was close to 2.7 samples per patient. We have seen that in the last three, four years, the proportion of bundled tests is more or less in the range of 13%-16%. This ratio has continued to improve. Just wanted to understand what can be optimum level. Is there anything which you have in mind that we can reach to this kind of level in terms of this ratio?
See, I think there are two big variables for this. One variable is what is the sort of a ticker price of a panel. As you rightly picked up, as the contribution of Swasthfit goes up or there are other panels tend to go up, it has a favorable impact on two people. One is doctors tend to prescribe panels. Patients also don't mind because they say, "Okay, fine. If I test, I can get more tests." There is some value of additional information to additional tests as well. As long as we are able to creatively price these panels around some number, let's say 1,000, 1,500, you tend to see that prescription habits as well as patient desire tend to move from a single or two tests or three tests to a panel test.
Panels always will have a battery of tests like eight or 10, and some of these Swasthfit panels have even 20 tests also. That's one big variable that is there for this number to move up. The second is as practice of medicine itself, because it's becoming more evidence-based. More awareness about.
Sorry.
Health awareness is so much these days that virtually patients tend to ask lot of questions to doctors saying that, "Okay, why are you doing this? Why are you doing that?" They also want few more tests to be done. As the practice of medicine tends to become evidence-based, this number also will go up. If I were to benchmark with Western world, there of course, somebody else pays for the test because they are all insurance cover and it's not out-of-pocket market. There the number is as high as close to 10 per patient. I'm not saying we will go to that number, but it gives you idea as to where it can go. Definitely this number will have a tendency to go up rather than go down.
Sure, sir. That's really helpful. Thank you so much.
Thank you. I request to all the participants, please restrict to two questions per participant. If time permits, please come back in the question queue for a follow-up question. The next question is from the line of Shaleen Kumar from UBS Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Thank you so much for the opportunity. Just want to know what's your current capacity of RT-PCR. Second, when you're looking at COVID-alike testing, is it that alike test is coming from a COVID positive patient or is it certain tests you are qualifying as COVID-alike test?
We are actually, I think, COVID-aligned tests, if I am correct, there are around five or six tests which are put in this cluster. Majority of the revenue coming from these two tests, which is D-dimer and IL-6, and there is around third test, CRP, as well. CRP test is done in many other conditions. I think D-dimer and IL-6 are the two tests which are primarily suddenly have come up in our portfolio due to COVID. We picked it up very early on. In fact, if you recall, we started showing these numbers much early. We knew that there is a tendency for these tests to go up, and hence we wanted to take it out of our non-COVID business. Today also, if you see our presentation, you will see non-COVID, then there's a COVID-aligned, which consists of five or six tests.
Is it six tests or five tests?
For this quarter, we are categorizing only two tests, IL-6 and D-dimer.
Okay. Because these are major ones.
Yeah, major.
These are two tests, IL-6 and D-dimer. The reason why we have taken on this is it's easy to relate to COVID, because other tests are still common with other conditions as well. That's why we have not taken up into our lives. IL-6 and D-dimer are two tests which are very important tests in COVID situation. That's why we have identified it separately. Your second question was that, why it's going up and how we are delivering COVID positive patients. Something like this. What was the question?
Is it you're only capturing these tests which are coming from COVID positive patients?
Sorry, (shruti), we are losing your audio.
Okay, I understand the question. It is primarily coming on account of doctor prescription, and I think most of these tests would be from COVID positive, because when one is diagnosed as positive, then you are actually consulting a doctor, and doctor is advising these tests on a fourth or fifth day or later. It's basically to doctor prescription these tests are coming.
Capacity of RT-PCR test. Sorry.
RT-PCR capacity can be seen in two ways. Number one, it should be seen as number of locations we do this test.
When we started in April 2020, we had only one lab in one state, which is Delhi, and it was done in our main lab in Rohini. As we finished 31st March, I think the number has gone up to 14 labs, right, Bharat?
Yes, indeed.
Yeah, 14 labs. Now we've added some more labs in April and May as well. That's why this number is fairly dynamic. Today, if I reclaim, the number has gone up to about 17 odd labs in our system. That is one way to look at capacity. These 17 labs are spread across 13 states. This number I'm telling you as of today, it's not really as of 31st March.
Right.
That's one way to look at it. Second is D-dimer and IL-6. The good thing is that it is much more spread out. I think close to 60 or 70 of our labs are doing these tests. D-dimer and IL-6 availability is much wider than, let's say, RT-PCR. Next way to look at capacity is number of tests that we can do. I hand over this question to Bharat to talk about, because capacity actually has two elements. One is the people capacity, which is to collect, another is machine capacity. Maybe, Bharat, you can throw a little bit of light on that number and how you are looking at capacity.
Capacity-wise, there are two angles to this. Like Dr. Lal mentioned that there is a machining capacity, which is the number of tests which the RT-PCR machine can do on a per three-hour shift basis. Three, three and a half shift basis. The second is around the people and the crew required to manage the entire lab operations, right from registration to getting the box open, to putting the neutralizing buffer and so on. The other capacity on the demand side is on collection capacity. That really depends on how you manage your mix. Is it driven by home collections? Is it driven by COVID-dedicated centers? Are you doing large government contracts and so on. What we effectively do is to run this like a network of labs. When we began last year, each state had considerations saying you cannot move sample out of my state.
Today, the states have realized that they can allow samples to move across, as long as the TAT has been maintained, the reporting accuracy has to be maintained. Leveraging technology, we run our entire operations like a network of labs, a network of sites, and we are able to transship samples in case one location overflows with sample on that particular day. This demand is also on an everyday basis. It is not what you would call, we establish a pattern, and then we are able to manage capacities. From a machining or a people perspective, I don't think we have a real challenge on increasing capacity even further if we want to. Collection and a bit of reporting tends to be bottlenecked at points of time. Otherwise, we are very comfortable on capacity.
Bharat, considering all the bottlenecks, how many tests can we do bare minimum on a daily basis?
See, we have surplus capacity over 30, 40% more than what we currently have done as peak.
Any number? What's the capacity, daily capacity, what we can do?
That's why-
Actually, the reason why Bharat is not talking about the capacity, I think the challenge that we have in sharing that number is because it depends on what channel you pick up. If you, let's say, taking more to home collection, the capacity comes down. Then we have another constraint that we have to report within 24 hours. If you do home collection, by the time sample hits the lab, it's only taken six, seven hours. Home collection way of doing business, your capacity goes down. If you pick up government samples, then you have a huge capacity. Since you are insisting on a number, we probably even have gone up to about 25 odd thousand samples also per day at a peak level.
As Bharat said that I don't think we can still only stretch the system little more. Since we have to keep this constraint of 24 hours reporting, we want to comply with that. We want to make sure that our B2C customers are serviced more because we have that defense time which we have B2B. Keeping that in mind, we have even gone to that number as well. These spikes actually happen only for one week, 10 days. They are not on a sustained basis every day. If you look at the trend, it started slowly building up in April. It peaks around third week of April. Now it's just going down. It falls flat in overnight as well.
That's why it's so fluctuating on a daily basis. Be sure that RT-PCR test every day you will have that number. It just doesn't happen that way.
Understood.
Since we share with you the quarterly number, you tend to feel as if I divide it by 90, which is a quarter day. These things are a very, very wide fluctuation. It just peaks and falls also. Very, very steep peaks which you see in these numbers.
Right.
If you look at them.
Sure. If I can, we just would.
Sir, sorry to interrupt you. I'll request you to come back in the question queue for a follow-up question. The next question is from the line of Malhar Manik from Manik Investments. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Congratulations on a good set of numbers, and thank you for this opportunity. I have just one question. I believe we are using data analytics based on customer footfall to optimize the location, size, merchandise, et cetera, of our collection centers and labs. I was wondering if you can please elaborate on this. How does it work? What is our optimization accuracy in terms of an approximate percentage, and for how many years have we been collecting this data? Ultimately, how does this investment in technology culminate in quicker turnaround time for customers?
Bharat, you want to take this?
Sure. Yeah, I can take that one, t hank you. First of all, when you set up a retail location, it is a lot of science, but a lot of art as well. There are various considerations which go behind where you locate a lab or a collection center. Collection center is fairly simple. You locate in high streets or in high-footfall locations or in medical hubs, effectively. We use certain data techniques and platforms, which for competitive reasons, I can't share exact names, to identify locations which are high traffic and then map against where we currently have supply from. As far as lab locations go, there are multiple other considerations, which is real estate availability, plate size, logistics, accessibility, power conditions, and so on. The variables between lab and collection centers are very, very different. A collection center is fairly simple.
The good news is that because of our, what do you call, let us say, as we gain more experience in leveraging technology and a bit of art, our new collection center success rate is very good. They don't drop off the network very soon. In fact, we have a separate program to baby care some of the new collection centers. We have a robust plan in terms of how do we identify locations, which is both evidence-based as well as some bit of intuitive and heuristic knowledge.
Okay. If a franchisee proposes to set up a lab in a location which is determined as not optimal, then we reject that. Is that so?
Indeed. Okay. Clarification, it is not a lab, it is a collection center.
Yeah.
We don't typically franchise out our labs. Collection centers, yes, we reject a lot of applications which come from unviable areas.
Okay. Approximately, is there any percentage, like optimization accuracy, which is right now?
We don't have a science effectively which I can give a number at this stage, at least in today's call. Yes, we can go back, check, and then maybe cascade it a bit later.
Okay, got it. Thank you so much.
Thank you, sir.
The next question is from the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anived Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Congrats to the team on a good set of numbers in that tough time. Good results, good numbers, good sign. Congrats to the team. I have two questions. If I scan the diagnostic care data, Dr. Lal has relatively lower COVID contribution to overall revenue. Are we better placed in FY 2022 for predictability of growth, assuming the second wave has peaked? Do we think that preventive packages will be preferred by customers and that could see increased contribution going forward? Secondly, if I look at the reference labs coming up in South and West, so what are we doing to create awareness, especially in Bangalore and Mumbai? What's the plan by Dr. Lal? There is already a need which is fulfilled by organized care. If you could share some insights on these two questions that we have put.
Yeah, o kay. First question, contribution of COVID to our total business. I think it's demand-driven. We are looking to serve the demand as it comes. We are not trying to promote it, unnecessarily push these tests. It is a function of disease spread. Some states are affected less, some are affected more. In some states, waves have come strong and some states later. I think it's clearly a function of that. Also, since we are the largest company in India in terms of base, I think we've done close to INR 250 crore, which is the highest RT-PCR turnover in the country. That's my sense. I haven't got yet all the numbers in place. That as a percentage of course, total overall sales figures would definitely be lower because our base is very large.
Having said that, it is to my mind, a function of which of the market we are strong in. Second question related to Bangalore and Bombay, whatever we are doing and how we plan to grow these markets. I think this COVID-19 thing, what it has done is that people are now preferring more home collections. Home collection business is not a very easy business to scale. I think in that difficulty lies an opportunity for us, because if we can execute this home collection service better than our competition, then I think we are home. To me, home collection business actually has two broad components to service. One is how tech-savvy you are, and I know that our DNA is not from technology, but I think we are moving rapidly on this path.
Also our phlebotomy services people, how courteous they are, how they deal with the patients, the entire customer service. To me, all this put together will act as a big differentiator. To my mind, that is one big sort of opportunity we are seeing in both these markets, so both Bangalore and Bombay, because they are very discerning customers as well. Market size is fairly large. We are seeing some traction in recent past, which is primarily driven by COVID testing also. We are very hopeful that we should be in the driving seat.
Part of the first question, do we think we'll see increased contribution of bundled packages? Would customers prefer that even whatever first wave, second wave has happened? There is definitely value proposition is better and I think you mentioned customers don't mind the additional test.
Yeah.
Are we seeing that or do we sense that could increase further?
Yeah, I think I missed that question. Sorry. As Bharat mentioned in his opening comments, that our contribution of Swasthfit package steadily rising. It clearly shows there's a pattern which is going to fall in place. I think about 19%, Bharat is it?
Yes, sir.
19%, 20% contribution on a base like ours, which is close to an INR 300 crore business, is a fairly large sort of a number which is now coming from these packages. I think if I were to do a scenario analysis, all of us are, including me and you are now much more health aware. We want to take care of our health very well. Overall diagnostics is the first place to start because most of us have realized that health is something inside you, not outside. People would want to get themselves tested. My belief is that this is definitely a tailwind for health packages to grow, both directly self-prescribed as well as also even medical fraternity also would want many of these tests to be done when they are seeing a patient.
I think short answer is definitely it's a positive, it's a favorable factor in times to come.
Sure, t hat is helpful. Lastly on the eastern market, how is the trajectory? Because it's been, I think, three and a half years since we started our reference lab. Is growth better there? Has it met our expectation that next year should we touch INR 300 crore turnover revenue in the eastern market? Hello? Bharat, are you connected?
Sure. I think we are very pleased with what we have achieved in East. It took us some time to ramp up operations in East of India, but I think our yearly numbers are really robust and growth is really healthy. In this COVID situation, KRL has established and carved out a name for itself in the market it operates in. We are very pleased with what has happened in East, and that is something which the learnings of it is what we are also trying to leverage as we move forward in South and West as well.
Fine. Thank you, a ll the best.
Thank you very much.
Thank you.
The next question is from the line of Rahul Agarwal from InCred Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, good evening. Heartening to see non-COVID volumes bouncing back as well as higher billings. Two questions. One is on the PSC and PUP side. I noticed PSC per lab ratio is heading up as planned. Last year it was 14, now 16, although you ended March 2021. I wanted to know the lab expansion plan as well as the PSC PUP expansion plan for fiscal 2022. Obviously Mumbai, Bangalore are expected very soon. If you throw some more light on the balance next 10 months, what kind of lab we are opening, is there any thought there? What kind of PSC and PUP network goes up in fiscal 2022? That's my first question. Thank you.
Sure. Thank you. Yes, you're right in saying that we see a bigger contribution for lab as hub, and this has been a conscious way we have been operating for quite some time now, is to bring a leverage into our lab operations as well as servicing the market. As we look forward, and which we have announced even in the lockdown period of last year, our lab expansion program continued without any challenge, and so also our collection center expansion plan. We are leveraging technology on the collection center network, so there is a lot of stuff which happened on technology enablement, and that is something that will help us to have a far more accelerated collection center network opening program. I think our pipeline is robust. Like Om mentioned, apart from the reference lab, we'll also be putting up a network of satellite labs.
In fact, some of them have got operationalized in South and West, and we continue to build upon this. I don't think you will see us wavering on our lab expansion plan, including satellite labs, and also collection center and pickup point network will continue. The one thing which I want to state is while South and West also is a key focus area, there are still markets in North and East and rest of North which we can still expand to. We can go deeper into the population, or we can, as cities expand, we can continue to expand into the city itself. Those efforts of identifying microclusters and establishing presence continues unabated.
Got it. Could I say 50 labs a year and 500 PSCs a year is there, just in terms of addition going forward, like 20% on PSC, 5% on lab network, YoY? Fair number?
PSC networks, I wouldn't like to commit a number to it at this stage, 500 or 450 or whatever it is. Last year it achieved a good number. Yes, our efforts will continue to remain at a robust level because the other point of opening collection centers is we also need to babycare them. There's no point opening collection centers and then shutting them after a year or so. There is a lot of growth opportunity establishment. It takes a year and a half too, to get them to shape. The investors have put in money to open collection centers. We owe it to them also to give it a full shot to succeed. It's important to find out where are the gaps, what are the full servicing suite which we need to put in. It's just not opening collection center.
There's a lot of marketing effort which goes into it. There's logistics, there is doctor connect. A whole suite of market activation which needs to be put in place. The effort we need to stabilize all of this and then be in the next level. Efforts continue, and I wait it is what I wanted to assure you of.
Okay, got it. Second question, more to do with first quarter April, May 2021, which we're going through right now. Earlier, my thought was, we were picky in terms of where we want to do the RT-PCR and COVID business based on state pricing, because they were deviating in higher in some states, lower in some states. Right now my sense is it's pretty much regulated across. As Dr. Om said, that even at current prices, given non-COVID support, we are profitable on COVID testing at current prices. Would that mean first quarter run rates actually are very large if I compare it quarter-on-quarter sequentially in terms of RT-PCR testing?
For example, if we did 450,000 tests this quarter, would it mean like we'll be doing INR 8, 9 lacs per quarter because there is a situation which actually worse off this time around versus the first wave?
No, I don't think we want to take any guess on this number because this is so volatile and so dynamic that situation changes every day. I don't think I would want that area of prediction for the quarter.
Okay.
We are trying to demand as it comes. Of course, we know that second wave has been very strong, and peak has been very high, but accordingly, it is coming down as well. In the last few days, that is what we have seen. I think it's
We still have one and a half months to go. I definitely won't want to put a face for the quarter right now.
Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you, Rahul. I'll request you to come back in the question queue. A request to all the participants, please restrict to one question per participant. If time permits, please come back in the question queue for a follow-up question. The next question is from the line of Sameer from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Thank you. Good evening, everyone. If I remember correctly, your focus in the expansion of the distribution was more towards PSCs. I'm a bit surprised to see that your Pick-up Points have also gone up significantly, I would say, actually much faster than PSC, about 30%. Just your thought on that. What's really driving this?
Yeah, I think what has happened is that we have done two acquisitions through PathLabs Unifiers. They have a very large pickup point business, and even a small pickup point also gets added. That also has contributed to this. Second area also has been that, unfortunately, last one year has been extremely stressful for many healthcare institutions. Due to lockdowns, they have not been able to manage their loads. They actually always found some bit of outsourcing to be done through our lab. We were also able to service them better. That also has contributed to this large growth. When some pickup points want to ask to give a sample, obviously, we end up entertaining them. Pickup points number per se is not a very sticky number, so it tends to fluctuate much more.
From a strategic perspective, I think somebody asked this question in terms of labs and PSC. We definitely want to improve the ratio between lab to PSC. When I say PSC, this means our own as well as franchising. This is one unit of growth that we really want to nurture because we believe that as the business moves towards very personalized service, home collection, the entire center of action is going to be Patient Service Center. These Patient Service Centers are going to be franchised out, and we want to embrace this entire network through technology with us on a real-time basis. I think fundamentally, that's the direction we want to go. The Pick-up Points, I would say they are getting added because of the market forces and the demand coming in. Bharat, if you want to add something to it, please do that.
No, Om I think he's covered that.
Thanks. One more, if I may. That is there any role that the company is thinking of playing in the vaccination drive and your updated thoughts on the volumes that you are getting or you may get from e-pharmacies?
It's a good question, Sameer. Though I know that in the beginning, a lot of healthcare institutions or allied institutions like dentist shops or even pathology labs, it is easily seen that if we really want to widen the network of vaccination, some of us can also participate in this direction. I really don't know. We are actually definitely if asked to do so, we will rise to that occasion. There is a bit of a question mark at our end because there is a requirement of certain spaces to be done. You need to have a waiting area, then you have to have a vaccination area, then you need to have an observation area, and the person has to wait for half an hour there. There is also a requirement for any adverse event that happens post-vaccination.
The way I see it is that it actually, if you have to really scale up in a big way, then it is like building a new infra. Our phlebotomists, I am not very sure whether they are from a regulatory perspective authorized to vaccinate. They do collection. I think it will be more driven by if authorities actually come back to us saying that we want to now widen the vaccination network. It will be driven by the guidelines that we get from authority. If asked to do so, we will not hold back. From an operation perspective, I am not very sure whether we are just there to do it naturally, because we don't have too much of space. Collection centers are too small, 100, 150 sq ft areas. I am not very sure how we can manage all these three, four rooms that's required.
Adverse event, we don't know. Even if we do a tie-up with some hospital, we need to have some kind of scale to even have some kind of ambulance there. I think operationally, it looks to me a bit challenging as of now, as I see it. If authorities want us to get involved, we will definitely come forward and help the country and society if required.
Got it. E-pharmacies?
Sorry to interrupt you. I'll request.
Sorry, what was the question on e-pharmacy?
Are you seeing enough volumes? Are they scaling up on the diagnostic side, and can they be a funnel into your labs?
For e-pharmacies like 1 mg and PharmEasy kind of guys, they can lead the (40P)?
Yeah, they've all started diagnostic services as well.
I know. I have seen this. Many of these guys on their own, they have started diagnostics. Bharat, you want to take this question?
Yes. Absolutely, I can take this Om. We have tied with all the large e-pharmacy chains
Like 1 mg and so on. They sell out test packages, and they give us the leads for us to service, or they give us samples for us to give the reports back to them. That is actually in place. Some of them are putting up their own labs. I think there are a couple of them who have labs in Delhi, for example, Healthians and 1mg. Healthians is not a strict e-commerce player, but yes, 1mg is. They are putting up their own labs. That is something which we keenly watch. We have also built our own e-commerce channel for us to be able to offer services digitally.
Some of these guys actually got advantage during COVID-19 spikes because there's always a spillover of demand from larger setup because the demand during the period went up so sharply, and it has come down as well. It's not that it's just staying there. It happened just for two weeks. The demand was so high. Most of us actually couldn't cater to it, whether it is Viral, Ion Exchange. I was just doing a math. Actually, it just went up 15 times the normal rate. There's no lab or nobody actually can meet the demand. That's what happened on the hospital side as well. Now it has come down as well. There's excess capacity. I think some of these labs got benefit of the spillover demand, and I think most of this demand was home collection and customers using tech solutions.
They did benefit out of this. Having said that, I think some of these guys are not to be taken lightly. They are definitely a competitor emerging in this space.
Thank you very much. Sameer, I'll request you to come back in the question queue for a follow-up question. The next question is from the line of Surajit Pal from Prabhudas Lilladher. Please go ahead.
Hi. Given the kind of situation has been evolved, kind of sectoral strategic shift could also happen. For the guys like Dr. Lal, whose presence was not that great in South and West, do you think that the current pandemic for last one year, which could be going for next one year too, the presence of digital also helping you to expand faster over here if that be the norm going forward?
Yeah. If I were to sum up, I think there are more tailwinds for us to enter new markets than before COVID.
We can mark a note on that.
The tailwinds are coming more because tech solutions, tailwinds are coming because of people wanting to actually get a test done from a reputed lab. They've heard about it, we always required to put our equity amongst medical fraternity. We were not that big B2C here, definitely we were a preferred player amongst the medical fraternity. Short answer is, definitely it is an advantage post-COVID for a player like us to go into new markets like South and West. Now it is for us how quickly we generate that.
That's right. Another question is that just if you can reiterate the contribution of RT-PCR and allied test in Q4 and FY 2022. I just missed it again.
I know there was one person trying to ask for FY 2022 quarter one as well, and I'm really hesitant to comment on that because we still don't know what that contribution could be going forward. Historically, yes, Ved, if I'm correct, quarter four is 11.2%.
In RT-PCR.
I'm talking about total business, total COVID. Total allied is very small last year. For the total year, it's about 18%. Where are you, Ved? I think Ved dropped off . I think it's in that range, about 11% for the quarter and 18% for the year.
Thank you. Sorry to interrupt you. I request Sujeet to come back in the question queue for a follow-up question. The next question is from the line of Kunal Randeria from Edelweiss Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Good evening. Sir, first question is I just want to understand a bit more on the stickiness of these COVID allied tests, especially the D-dimer. With vaccination, one vaccine is associated with blood clots and all. Do you see a longer tail to D-dimer until the vaccination is done?
It's a little technical question. I don't know if Dr. Lal can answer this, if he's on the call. Otherwise, I'll take a crack on this. Dr. Lal is there? Hello, can you hear me?
Yes, sir.
Hello.
Yeah.
Hello. Dr. Lal?
Yeah, I can hear you.
Can you answer this question? I think the question which I thought was related to vaccination and D-dimer.
I can.
Can you repeat the question?
Okay.
My question is, I'm just trying to understand the stickiness of allied tests, COVID allied tests like D-dimer.
With one vaccine being associated with blood clots and all, I'm just wondering whether you will see a very long tail with D-dimer test.
First of all, this is a myth that one vaccine gives rise to blood clot, et cetera. It is well within it, something like six cases in a million have been spotted or something like that. That can happen with anybody. What you have to remember is it is not vaccine-related, but it is related to COVID. COVID itself goes and affects the blood vessels of the lung, and that is what causes these kind of problems. There is, to me, no vaccination-related coagulopathy, as you call it, in India has been reported. Yes, they are on record, but they are insignificant. The problem what you are asking is due to the COVID effect and not to the vaccine effect on a large scale.
Sure. Okay.
Yes
as COVID tapers down in India, some of these tests will also go down. Follow the same trajectory.
Yeah, t hat's very clear. Yeah. To me, I think it's a fairly clear thing. It is these RT-PCR, IL-6, D-dimer, they are all linked to the trajectory of COVID. If the COVID goes down, these tests will go down. That's why I'm a little hesitant to actually put a fully a number, because I still don't know what's going to happen in future.
That's absolutely correct. It's like a sine curve, when the epidemic is on and the peak is on. Now the second peak is now definitively coming down. You will have less testing of all these tests, and these are all follow-up tests in any case. These are post-symptomatic reaction to the virus. They automatically come down. The number of deaths in India, unfortunately, have not come down, but we will see them coming down, and we will see the effects everywhere.
Okay. That answers my question. Thank you.
Thank you very much. The next question is from the line of Abod from Pategra Investment Private Limited. Please go ahead.
Good evening, sir. Thanks for taking my call. Over the last year, we've seen hospital walk-ins among patients have dropped. In terms of the hospital tests coming down in favor of home collection, is there any gesture you could lend to what you're seeing from a data perspective? As an extension of this, do we expect that once hospital walk-ins go back to normal levels, there will be a reversal of some kind from standalone labs to maybe hospital-based labs?
I think there are two, three things that you mentioned. Hospital walk-ins have come down, that's correct. A lot of OPDs have gone online, which is also correct. Walk-ins coming down does not mean that consults are not happening. Consults are now happening online. I have talked to a few colleagues of mine who run hospitals. They did mention to me, in fact, most of us used to think that this is permanent shift and people will not come back. When the COVID went down, a lot of people actually started coming back as well. There is a patient interface with the doctor, face-to-face, also has its own therapeutic aspect, right? There is a tendency for patients to come back. Right now, since we are in the middle of this crisis in wave 2, a lot of it has actually gone back on online.
I think your second question was, will hospital labs play a big role? I think some hospital labs have already started home collection, but their reach is only within one to two-kilometer area. It's not something they try to build a retail pathology network. They only service their own current patient base. To that extent, they are doing some kind of home collection, hospital labs.
Yeah. If I may add, Om, to what you have said. When the COVID epidemic or pandemic is fully on, the people who suffer, who are actually old patients of what you call these non-communicable diseases, what you call comorbidities, people like diabetics with problems, hypertensive problems, cardiac patient problems, cancer patient problems, renal transplant patients with problems, and other kind of problems, strokes, et cetera. Those people, they stop coming, or nobody even actually entertains them that much because we are full of COVID patients. It works both ways. The moment COVID decreases, these patients start coming back because they are on treatment. Imagine there's a patient of cancer who's on chemotherapy. That poor chap's chemotherapy has been stopped. He has to go back. It is inversely proportional. That's all.
Understand. Thank you.
Thank you very much.
Yeah.
The next question is from the line of Himanshu, an individual investor. Please go ahead. Himanshu Bhanushali, may I request you to unmute your line from your side and go ahead with your question?
Yeah. Hi, sir. Good evening. Congratulations on great set of numbers. I'm supremely satisfied on how my parents were served by Dr. Lal during this pandemic. I would want to say one thing. You should focus setting tests through collection centers rather than labs, since at the end, we are serviced by more than phlebotomists.
Support all the time, even at night.
Himanshu, you said we should service our patients through collection centers?
I will share the one incident. At one point of time, I called community center for my mom RT-PCR test. I got waiting period for more than three, four hours. Once I came to know that there's a collection center around my home. I called the collection center. The collection center assisted me very well, and they supported me even at night. I just want to focus like why Dr. Lal is not catering tests to collection centers other than labs.
No, I think thank you for that. I think you already said that, actually. No, thank you for the input. Actually, that's our strategy going forward because the purpose of franchising is to scale, because otherwise if we start doing on our own, we can't scale the business. That's the reason why we have a franchising. We want to actually embrace the entire franchising network through technology so that we are also able to see the entire customer experience at franchising level. While you have had a great experience at franchising, sometimes we also have cases other way around as well. We want to keep the visibility of the entire experience customer is going through our franchising. You're absolutely right. To scale this business, we have to go through franchising. That's where we'll be able to go every nook and corner of the country.
Thank you very much. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraint, that will be the last question for today. I will now hand the conference over to the management for closing comments.
Ved, do you want to.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Thank you everyone for being with us on this call today, and look forward to connect you again on our next call. Till then, I wish all of you and your family to be safe and healthy. I would now end the call. Thank you.
Thank you very much. On behalf of Dr. Lal PathLabs, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining. You may now disconnect your lines. Thank you.