Ashok Laboratory was founded by Dr. Ratnamala Ray, who wanted to channelise her expertise and experience of accumulated research experience in medical biochemistry for alleviating sufferings of ailing humanity. The Laboratory opened its doors on 2nd June 1986 and since then has been serving as a beacon of good ethical practice and standards. In 1986 Dr. Parbati Banerjee (Ray) joined the institution and Dr. Abhijit Banerjee, a renowned pathologist, joined in his capacity of Laboratory Director in 2005.

In 1999-2001, the laboratory got accredited by NABL in for the discipline of biochemistry. Since then, the repertoire of accredited departments has increased and now includes clinical pathology, haematology, cytopathology, histopathology, microbiology

Ashok Laboratory, incidentally is the third laboratory in India to be accredited under the guidelines of NABL (ISO 15189) and apart from routine  day to day clinical diagnostic work, is also carrying out valuable research work in the fields of infertility treatment, medical microbiology, clinical biochemistry and others. The lab also  has set up a nucleic acid amplification facility for Tuberculosis diagnosis and flow cytometry for cell immunotyping.