The healthcare sector has been one of the few to attract decent investments in the past year and going by the annual predictions put out by most analysts, market sentiment should pick up this year too. Express Healthcare’s February issue thus trains the spotlight on finance. Our cover story (pages 22-27) analyses PE funding activity over the past few years and gets industry experts to predict some opportunities for investors in the year ahead. But is this more hype and hope and the fact that healthcare seems a safer bet than other sectors? As one set of numbers proves, while 2013 did see decent PE fund flows, investors are still risk averse. While the number of deals might have increased, deal value has decreased. So we still have to wait for this story to play out.
In terms of financing options available to the consumer/patient, health insurance and patient financing are the mainstays. But experts from FICCI analyse that health insurance suffers a trust deficit and many kinks in the insurance distribution need to be solved (page 31). At the bottom of the pyramid, the patient financing model is slowly picking up traction, thanks to initiatives like Arogya Finance , according to its co-founder (interview on page 37).
There are also welcome signs that deserving healthcare entrepreneurs are finally getting noticed and bagging the funds to scale up their ventures. For instance, social venture fund Aavishkaar Venture Management has chosen to give Series A funding to Mera Doctor, which has a unique model of taking healthcare to the rural areas through pre-paid mobile cards.
Startups generally choose to address niche needs which existing players ignore; either because they deem it too small or too time consuming. But these pioneers sometimes find the equivalent of a vein of gold. For example, haven’t most of us experienced the exasperating experience of parenting our parents, when it comes to their healthcare? The dilemma is: how do we monitor without interfering? Especially if they insist on staying close to their roots, living continents away, alone with their ailments. NRIs living in the US have seen a continuum of care in geriatrics, chronic care and post operative cases but there are few examples of the same in India.
Which is why the $3 billion dollar home care segment in India attracted the interest of serial entrepreneur husband-wife duo Ganesh K and Meena Ganesh. Scanning the landscape, they found an interesting model in a venture set up by two young NRI entrepreneurs: Karan Aneja and Zachary Jones. Replicating the US home care system in India might seem like a recipe for failure but they were canny enough to quickly “pivot their model”, as Ganesh puts it and this convinced him to come on board. Portea Medical recently bagged further funding and 2014 will be a year of “scorching” growth. (pages: 34-36)
While state governments do try to plug the gaps, they add to the problem by announcing populist measures. For instance, private and charitable hospitals in Karnataka are protesting that the tariffs under the Yeshasvini and Vajpayee Arogyasri schemes are not viable, especially since the government intends to cover nearly the entire state population under either of the schemes. (pages 38-39)
The urban-rural contrast continues. The lead story in the Knowledge section (pages 40-44) analyses cancer care in India and finds that in the rural areas it is almost non-existent. In the urban areas, while state-of-the-art technology is available, unethical practices ranging from unnecessary surgeries and chemotherapy, compounded by dicey histopath reports are literally a lethal combination.
Which is why the next issue of Express Healthcare will focus on the tremendous manpower issues threatening to stall future growth in India’s healthcare sector. Do tune in for more.
Viveka Roychowdhury
Editor
