The business of health: Business India

(prHWY.com) January 14, 2013 - New Delhi, India -- ACII-PwC report: India Pharma Inc - gearing up for the next level of growth, released recently, predicts that it is likely for India to be among the top-10 global pharma markets in value terms by 2020. The market will be essentially driven by a high burden of diseases, improve-ments in healthcare infrastructure and improved healthcare financing. Growing at a cagr of more than 15 per cent over the last five years, the Indian pharma indus-try has significant growth opportunities.

At least in terms of healthcare infrastructure, a lot seems to be happen-ing on the block. fortis healthcare launched the fortis Memorial Research institute (fmri) in gurg-aon. it will be spread over 12 acres and will entail an investment of `450 crore. Slated as the next-gen hos-pital, its first phase will be operational by 2013 and will have 400 doctors besides more than 1,000 nurses. The eventual bed capacity would be 1,000. It claims to be the first in its cate-gory to house a full-fledged stem cell lab. other features include robotic surgery, an organ transplantation facility, 3 tDigital mri, 256 slicect scan, advanced Brain suite, Bi-plane Cath-lab, time of flight pet ct, e-icu, voice-modulated integrated operat-ing rooms and an open diagnostic lab. The facility, say experts, will add in a big way to gurgaon as a medical tourism destination.
"It is aimed at delivering cutting edge medicine in line with the best in the west," says Malvinder singh, executive chairman, fortis health-care. "No effort has been spared and every conceivable detail has been looked into in the setting up of fmri, positioned as the healthcare destina-tion facility in asia." fmri, according to shivinder singh, executive vice-chairman, fortis healthcare, "marks a paradigm shift in our interpreta-tion of the idea of holistic patient care and our quest for excellence. All our efforts are directed at radically improving clinical outcomes with a warm and friendly experience."

Given that the fmri campus will also include a swimming pool, a gym and spa, art and health programmes, a mini theatre, retail therapy out-lets and also a food court ...fmri, it wouldn't be wrong to say, would be a destination in itself.

Meanwhile, us-based star Dental recently entered India to tap the $1.8 billion Indian oral care market by launching Clove, a multi-specialty dental care centre in Delhi spread across 1,000 sq ft. It is targeting to set up 300 company-owned clinics across India by 2015 at an investment of `150 crore. "Dentistry in India is going through an exciting period of change," says serial entrepreneur amarinder pal singh, ceo, star Dental India. "The oral care industry in India is $1.8 billion and is pegged to grow at 6 per cent annually. the idea was to design a dynamic space that does not resemble a typical dental clinic...therefore, inter-national hygiene and treatment standards have been incorporated that includes germ free sterili-sation rooms, autoclaves and highly advanced pain managed procedures." adds louis shakinovsky, chairman, star Dental: "we saw a need gap in India for highest level of strict

Dr Pervez Ahmed: essential to ensure timely access adherence to internationally accepted hygiene standards. Our team of over 1,000 dentists is trained by International experts to bring the best to their patients."

Around the same time, pervez ahmed, former ceo, Max health-care, launched the first of 34 urgent care centres of aapka urgicare in Delhi-ncr. Positioned to bridge the gap between primary care doctors and hospital emergency rooms, the rest of the clinics are expected to come up in Delhi ncr in the next 18 months. The average area of each clinic will be 5,000 sq ft and will entail an investment of `2.5 crore. A tie-up with Denmark-based ambulance firm falck is also in place to pro-vide ambulances at all the centres.

"Our clinics are the result of a vision to provide state-of-the-art medical equipment and life-saving procedures to all in times of need," says ahmed, who is cmd, aapka urgicare. "the best part is that there is no need for an appointment and one can walk into the clinic any time for medical treatment for inju-ries or illnesses requiring immediate care. This concept is quite popular in various western countries, including the US, and we felt it was time that health care in India also progressed in the area of emergency care." With an impressive and long stint in the us as a practititoner behind him, he would certainly know.

"The fear of diseases such as den-gue and malaria that create a panic among the people can be eased with the help of such clinics which pro-vide medical support and urgent care day and night," ahmed further adds. "It is also essential to ensure timely access to health services in densely populated areas that are prone to infectious and vector-borne diseases as well as road accidents."
Expansion mode

Max super specialty hospital, patpar-ganj, Delhi, too launched five insti-tutes within the hospital catering to cardiac sciences, neurosciences, renal sciences, cancer and trauma centre. "the response to this hospi-tal has been overwhelming and we have served close to three lakh patients since 2005 when we launched it," says analjit singh, chairman, Max India group. "the new spe-cialty centres would even cater to the increasing inflow of patients from nearby cities of noida, ghaz-iabad, Meerut, Moradabad, hapur and haldwani." Also mention worthy is Eye-Q hos-pitals. the chain of super specialty eye care hospitals with 16 hospitals across India is also in expansion mode. the chain which began from gurg-aon is now spreading its branches in Rewari, Rohtak, hisar, Yamunanagar and fatehabad (haryana), haldwani (uttrakhand), saharanpur, Rudra-pur, Muzaffarnagar, Meerut (uttar pradesh) and surat (gujarat). using the hub-n-spoke model, it aims to build 100 hospitals in three years.

"You have a choice of creating a big hospital and attracting patients within a 200-250 km radius, or you can provide those facilities at the place where the patients are and move your machines and experts there. in our hub-and-spoke model, we have 7-8 hospitals in the span of around 50 km each and these hospitals will be serviced by those machines which we have more or less made portable or fixed in a place so that people can move around and experts control all these hospitals through the doctors there as well as their own personal visits. this way, we are able to lever-age both the doctors as well as their equipments because of this hub-and-spoke model. this keeps our pricing appropriate as per what people can afford in the district headquarters," explains Rajat goel, co-founder and chief executive officer, Eye Q super specialty hospitals.

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