Please share with us the highlights of your agreement with LifeScan
LifeScan funded a good part of initial R&D by a milestone payment once we proved that product was workable. And now that the product is in market, they pay us in two ways. One is the quarterly service fee of one cent everytime they sell our strips. The other way we make money is when we manufacture and supply strips to LifeScan.

How had 2012 been for you?
2012 was an exciting year for the company. We saw growth in revenues. For the first nine months we generated $23.5 million worth of revenue, which is 117 percent higher than that of previous year. We also witnessed more than 300 percent growth in the fees that we got from LifeScan. So that reflects the early growth in the market.

What are the new trends that the diagnostic segments will witness?
I think that the trends of the previous year will continue. We hope to see continuous growth in the POCD market. I also hope continued integration of diagnostics tools with IT. We have already sent some of the POCD products, which offer wireless connectivity to communicate information to doctors, for better empowerment of patient.

Another different trend that I expect is that more interest in diagnostics from companies that have not ventured in diagnostics segment. Pharma companies, I suppose, would want to get involved in personalized medicine in some way so to have control over diagnostics and treatment.

What are some of the new strategies for 2013?
Everything we do is new. What we want to do is extend the portfolio of our testing capabilities. We will be adding the three new coagulation tests. In the background, we also continue to develop the immunoassay testing and molecular testing (DNA Testing). These things at early stages but the market for these tests is lucrative.

What is the potential of the geographies that you operate in?
At the moment our priority remains US, European and Japanese markets, as these are very large and lucrative markets. There are interesting opportunities in emerging economies as well. If you see China and India, there is a very big market in terms of people and healthcare. But when you get out into regional areas of China, the ability to take samples from patients and move them around to the laboratories is not great. The idea of having low cost easy to use tools for local diagnostics of patients is appealing. So I see good opportunities in POCD in these markets.