What a Failed Bet on PET-CT Taught Me About Staying in Your Lane

Found a lot of similarities in our recent meet. Village born. Born poor. Built career patiently. We first met in 2010 when I was venturing into Nueclear a PETCT “single test” company. I was flushed with cash from pathology and wanted to be a leader in PETCT, an over priced technology. My ex employer BARC (RMC) was a leader then. He was representing GE-Wipro. I asked 5 cyclotrons and 25 PETCT. What was 200 cr capex for 100 cr. He explained in pathology there are many players it works. Not in PETCT where only 1.5 player in market. We have monopoly. Also he said it may not work that way. Radiology is cut driven. But I persuaded. We had a lot of meetings. Finally he said No. I said copy your mail to Mr. Premji. He did. I got to personally meet “The man” one to one. He asked, after 30 mins of hearing me, patiently a simple Question. Blunt. “Will you give cuts?. I said no. I did not give in pathology. He said take one cyclotron and 5 PETCT at price you asked. Prove what you dream works. I will support you. I started it with a dream to do a million PETCT in 10 yrs. Cutting long story short “It finally did not work as I dreamt. I did PETCT for 6000 Rs when the market did for 25,000 Rs. Still I only burnt money. Lessons learnt. 1. In Pathology : Specimen flies. in Radiology: It is not possible. 2. Though both are diagnosis no one is successful in doing both. 3. If you are good at one, do not dream you can not do everything through both are in medical diagnosis. #Focus. Dinesh Lodha is a rare versatile employee who should have been a strong entrepreneur. He is still young. I think he is the most qualified, most versatile medical entrepreneur who can improve any loss making balance sheet to 20% EBiDTA. Happy to have met him after 15 long years. He said he missed dinner of #SumathiVelumani.

Village born. Born poor. Built a career patiently. Meeting Dinesh Lodha again after 15 years, I was struck by how much we have in common.

We first met in 2010, when I was venturing into Nueclear, a single-test PET-CT company — flush with cash from my pathology business and determined to become a leader in an overpriced technology. My former employer's radiation medicine unit was the dominant player at the time. Dinesh was representing GE-Wipro. I asked for 5 cyclotrons and 25 PET-CT units — roughly ₹200 crore in capex — at the price of ₹100 crore.

He pushed back. In pathology, he explained, many players can coexist and it still works. PET-CT was different — with barely more than one real competitor in the market, it was closer to a monopoly, and radiology, unlike pathology, runs on referral cuts rather than volume. He warned me it might not translate.

I persisted anyway. After many meetings, he finally said no. So I asked him to copy his refusal to Mr. Premji — and that got me a one-on-one meeting with the man himself. After 30 minutes of hearing me out, he asked one blunt question: "Will you give cuts?" I said no — I never had in pathology, and I wouldn't start now. He told me to take one cyclotron and 5 PET-CT units at the price I'd asked, to prove the model could work, and he'd back me from there.

I started with a dream of doing a million PET-CT scans in ten years. Cutting a long story short: it didn't work out that way. I priced scans at ₹6,000-9,000 when the market was charging ₹25,000 — and still burned through money rather than building the volume I'd envisioned.