On the sidelines of Arab Health, Daily Dose caught up with Sukhdeep Sachdev, Global Chief Executive Officer, Leader Healthcare, to find out how the company has responded to the COVID-19 crisis.
He said that there was a lot of conversation around how rapidly COVID-19 can be diagnosed at the start of the pandemic and what can be done to tackle post-COVID-19 issues effectively. Life Sciences became an important focus area and, therefore, in April 2020, Leader Life Sciences was formed.
“We have worked with both the Abu Dhabi and Dubai governments and helped them build labs in a record time of 10 days. These are biosafety level type three labs, which would usually take up to three to four months to build, but we did it in 10 days. That is something our team is very proud of,” he shared.
Leader Life Sciences is present at Medlab along with its partner Cellink, a company specializing in advanced bioprinting technologies for pharmaceuticals and drug development. Cellink’s products, such as the 3D processor, can replicate any kind of tissue that can be built in a 3D printed environment. “We are very proud to have such an association at this point in time,” he added.
Learning curve
Sachdev said that COVID-19 was an opportunity for healthcare leaders to showcase their company’s capabilities and to bring together all the resources, technologies and equipment needed. “It was a time for us to go and stand by the nation and to flex our muscles in a good way,” he said.
He also stressed that during these testing times, it was essential to give back to the community. To fulfil this promise, Leader Healthcare was committed to building field hospitals.
“We were able to bring all the technology that was needed to survive the pandemic. We also focused on training, education, and after-sales service, during these turbulent times. So COVID-19, while challenging, also provided a learning curve for leaders,” he added.
Commenting on the theme of Arab Health this year, ‘United by Business’, he said that we are living in a time where accessing clinicians and physicians physically was tough, and people had to practice social distancing. But the business has to go on. “We have several businesses and have thought about how we can combine resource management between different business units,” he said.
For Leader Healthcare, AI is a big focus area, but during the pandemic, the focus was on trying to pull everything together and seeing how different technological solutions interact with each other.
“Over the last year and a half, we have been able to gather a lot of data,” explained Sachdev. “Now, we are working on processing and reforming this data. AI and machine learning became fancy words for many of us, but all of this is dependent on data. With big data, you can accumulate the data and process and assess it to mitigate the risk and see what applies to you. If the investment is not made in these tools, businesses won’t be able to meet customer requirements. Moreover, with these tools, resources can be put to better use and enhance the overall performance.”
New ventures
When asked about future partnerships, Sachdev highlighted that Leader Healthcare Group wants to disrupt the market. “In September, we will be launching another company that will be focusing on biotech and pharmaceuticals,” he shared. The reason for venturing into pharmaceuticals, he said, was because worldwide, over 10,000 patents are going to go away, which will lead to a significant gap in the marketplace. This move will help the company in bringing generics into the marketplace.
In conclusion, he said that companies need to make sure that people are their first priority. “In a short while, 70 per cent of our population will be millennials, and they will need to be groomed. This is a major focus area for Leader Healthcare, and we are working towards bringing their dreams to life,” he said.
