Satish Kishanchandani speaker at News Corp VCCircle Healthcare Investment Summit 2017
Is India’s healthcare challenge an opportunity for investors?
Healthcare sector in India, which according to some estimates was a $100 billion industry in 2015, is likely to become a $280 billion market by 2020. This impressive growth will primarily come on account of increasing demand for better healthcare services from a growing middle class that is increasingly become more aware and demanding, and also has access to resources to service its needs. A large part of the growth will also come from the massive chasm between demand and supply in healthcare services in tier II and III towns that have lately seen a spurt in economic growth.
Given the government’s limitations, most of this growth will be financed by investments coming directly from strategic or institutional investors or private equity and venture capital. According to DIPP data, between April 2000 and September 2016 FDI over $5billion found its way into hospitals, diagnostics and medical and surgical appliances segments while more than 14 billion went into pharmaceuticals and drug segment. A lot of this investment came in the form of private equity and venture capital from leading global investors such as International Finance Corporation, Abraaj Group, TPG Growth, InvAscent, Chryscapital, and Quadria Capital among others.
Relatively mature, pharma segment has been leading the wave of consolidation in the industry while hospitals and diagnostics have been hitting the public markets to raise funds for growth. Meanwhile, private equity and venture capital continues to pour into smaller operations such as regional diagnostic services, medical appliances, healthcare services as well as digital services. The size of PE/VC investments into healthcare businesses has gone up from $5-20 million around three years ago to $20-40 million in 2016-17.
In the midst of this, debt financing is being explored by a new breed of doctors-cum-entrepreneurs and a lot of NBFCs and venture debt funds are coming forward to lend them a hand. Insurance and health-tech, two critical blocks with immense potential to boost healthcare growth, surprisingly, aren’t seeing as much action. To be sure, a lot of experiments are being made in tele-medicine & mobile health space as well as digitizing doctor-patient data but no defining moves have come to the fore yet. Does the latter require a conscious attention from global big players such as GE, Siemens and Philips while the former needs more serious policy interventions from the government?
The ninth edition of News Corp VCCircle Healthcare Investment Summit, to be organized in Mumbai shortly, will examine these emerging trends as well discuss challenges faced by India’s healthcare industry and opportunities pursued by an exciting bunch of entrepreneurs, medical practitioners and investors.
Key Topics:
• Is India’s healthcare challenge an opportunity for investors?
• Healthcare IPO’s: What explains the rush? IPOs Vs PE-VC money, what would you pick?
• Healthcare Services: Will multi-specialty hospitals follow the consolidation route?
• Single Specialty: Who cuts the chase?
• Ensuring Affordability and Quality: Balancing costs, pricing and quality for a sustainable business
• Role of global leaders in developing Indian healthcare market?
• A peek into “Hospitals of Future”: how would robotics, AI, automation change the way they look?
• Transparency in Patient Data: The Next Big Thing
• Bets on Health-Tech – What are the winning trends?
• Online Pharmacy: The Uber moment for an age old sector, would it succeed?
• Healthcare at Home: A viable model? How do the numbers stack up?
• Universal Health Coverage: Moving beyond plans to actions