After cardiac care, Dr Devi Shetty set to expand cancer care network aggressively

Narayana Healthcare plans to set up a string of cancer care centres with 50-10 beds across cities and towns starting with Mysore and Ahmedabad

After firmly establishing himself in the cardiac care, Dr Devi Shetty, the founder chairman of Bangalore-based healthcare chain - Narayana Healthcare - is now turning towards cancer care to aggressively expand the scope of his operations. Narayana Healthcare, the JP Morgan and Pinebridge (earlier AIG) backed healthcare chain with as much as 5,000 beds across India, is aligning with the likes of Biocon's CMD Kiran Mazumdar Shaw as well as one of the co-founder's of Infosys - K Dinesh - to expand the cancer care network.

Dr Shetty speaking to Business Standard said that they are looking to set up a string of cancer care centres with 50-10 beds across cities and towns starting with Mysore and Ahmedabad in the near future. This follows the setting up of one of India's largest centre for cancer care in Bangalore with 1,400 beds supported by the investment of Mazumdar-Shaw. It is understood that Narayana Healthcare is looking to almost double the number of beds under cancer care over a period of time.

According to information available, K Dinesh, one of the co-founders of Infosys, who has since stepped away from the Board of Infosys, will be funding a cancer care centre being put up by Narayana Healthcare shortly.

"Dinesh is on the Board of Narayana Healthcare and he has already funded a centre with Narayana Healthcare and he is investing further," a senior official of Narayana Healthcare told Business Standard.

In addition to aligning with like-minded HNIs to expand the network of Narayana Healthcare, Dr Shetty is understood to be in discussions with few private equity funds to raise upto $40 million to fuel the expansion plans.

This move by Narayana Healthcare comes at a time when India's largest cancer care -focussed chain Healthcare Global with 27 centres across India is looking to push this number to 45 by 2016. A management official of HCG told Business Standard that with technology developments, they are making cancer care more accessible with more centres instead of the traditional method of adding beds.

"There is an increased off-take for ambulatory care through a out-patient system and an in-patient system kicks in at a later stage. There is a definitive shift happening towards that and hence we are scaling up our reach," the spokesperson for HCG noted.

HCG recently got private equity funding from Singapore's sovereign fund - Temasek Global with a possible commitment of upto $100 million over a period of time.