DM Healthcare eyes India

Dubai-based healthcare group DM Healthcare plans to invest nearly Dh2.42 billion in four years in the fast-growing Indian healthcare market, according to a media report.

The expansion in India is part of the firm’s plan to become a global healthcare chain by 2017 with plans to expanding into other Asian countries and Africa, Azad Moopen, a non-resident Indian physician who is the firm’s promoter, chairman and managing director, told Livemint.

DM Healthcare posted a revenue of Rs21 million in fiscal year 2013 and expects a 50 per cent growth in the current fiscal year, according to information provided by the company, which has a network of about 156 establishments including hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centres and pharmacies in the Gulf region.

The group, which has a capacity of about 1,700 beds, will increase it to 5,000, a large portion of which it hopes to build in India.

“In addition to the healthcare complex Aster Medcity, the project that we have already planned at Kochi in Kerala with a total investment of $300 million, we will look at two more projects in the state along with at least a dozen greenfield and existing hospitals spread across Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Gujarat in the first phase of our India expansion,” said Moopen.

The Kochi project, which will have a 570-bed multi-specialty hospital and a four-star hotel along with residential apartments in a 40-acre plot, is expected to be opened by the first quarter of 2014.

DM Healthcare has two existing associate hospitals with a combined bed capacity of 800, running at Kozhikode and Kottakkal in Kerala, and is planning to start another 200-bed hospital at Kannur in northern Kerala.

Besides, it has also started a medical college in the state located in the northern district of Wayanad.

In Maharashtra, it has identified locations for setting up new hospitals though it currently runs two hospitals in Kolhapur and Pune, the newspaper said.

The value of the Indian healthcare services industry, as estimated by consultancy firms EY and McKinsey and Co. in 2008, was around $35 billion and is projected to rise to about $150 billion by 2017.
 

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