Asia Healthcare looks to expand single-specialty network portfolio

Asia Healthcare Holdings (AHH), which has made a string of investments in recent times, is not a fund but a healthcare platform that is focused on building rather than buying, says the company's Executive Chairman, Vishal Bali.

And AHH has set its eyes on single-specialty institutions, as is evident from its track-record over the last two years. During the period, AHH picked up stakes in a network of: oncology hospitals under the American Oncology Institute (AOI) brand; mother-and-child hospitals under the Motherhood brand; and pathology diagnostics centres under the Ampath brand. Now, the fund is on the prowl again.

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“We are looking at other single-specialty systems,” Bali told BusinessLine , pointing to possibilities in opthalmology, ENT or orthopedics. The company’s funds will be channelled towards growing the existing three networks, even as the search for other single opportunities continues, he said. AHH is reportedly already in talks with Nova IVI Fertility chains.

Single-specialty focus

AHH was incubated in 2016 by private equity fund TPG Growth. More recently, it got $50 million funding from Temasek Holdings. The idea to focus on single specialties in India and the South Asian region was to address supply gaps and enter under-served regions.

“The metros have a concentration of healthcare facilities, but it is not so in smaller cities,” said Bali, adding that on a country-level too, India was lagging behind other countries.

In 2016, AHH took majority control of Cancer Treatment Services International (CTSI), the holding company of American Oncology Institute which was started in the US by oncologists in the University of Pittsburgh Medical Centre (UPMC). UPMC has a 7 per cent equity stake in CTSI, said Bali pointing out that it was the first oncology network in the region with equity participation from a US university that is also a leading oncology provider in that country.

The oncology network, which started with one hospital in Hyderabad, has grown to 10. There is also one in Sri Lanka and plans are on for facilities in Myanmar, Nepal and Bangladesh, he said. Bali said that such networks and synergies have helped the company set up South Asia’s first international tumour board which enables the centres to log in and get opinions on cases. “It is a bridge between the East and the West,” says Bali, adding that the network becomes a pan-South Asian provider in cancer treatment.

Similar growth plans are under way for the other two brands as well, with the mother-and-child network expanding to cater to gynaecological needs, apart from just birthing. And the Ampath brand in the diagnostics segment has grown from a single lab in Hyderabad to a pan-India provider of laboratory diagnostics.

The differentiation that AHH provides is not just building in multiple single specialities into one platform but also the fact that the company’s management team runs all the portfolio companies, he says. And the advantage in having its management team playing significant roles in the companies they invest in is that it gives them “synergies of talent, synergies of capital and synergies of geographies,” says Bali.

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