Alliance Medicorp's plan to rope in US firm hits roadblock

A move from Alliance Medicorp, a joint venture (JV) between Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Limited (AHEL) and Trivitron Healthcare, to tie-up with US-based dialysis services major DaVita Inc for its future expansion has failed, according to Pratap C Reddy, executive chairman of AHEL.

Around 70 per cent of the stake in the joint venture is with Apollo Hospitals, while the remaining is held by Trivitron Healthcare, a medical technology company promoted by entrepreneur GSK Velu.

DaVita Inc is into providing kidney care services in the US, delivering dialysis services to patients with chronic kidney failure and end-stage renal disease.

“We were in talks with DaVita for a tie-up to expand our dialysis centres chain. But it seems they are not interested. Hence,we are planning to go ahead on our own,” Reddy told mediapersons after announcing the successful completion of 55 complex robotic surgeries by AHEL. He, however, declined to reveal more details on the company’s future plans for its dialysis business.

As on January 2012, the joint venture has around five dialysis centres. It is planning to expand this to 20 clinics in future, according to earlier reports.

It may be noted that the JV company has re-branded its dental clinics business from Apollo Dental Centres to White Dental Care by restructuring it into various formats to cater to the needs of different patient segments.

According to reports, the JV also had plans to dilute stake to raise funds for future expansion as well as to pave the way for the new partner.

Responding to a query on reports that Sutherland Global Services and Genpact are in talks with AHEL’s healthcare business process outsourcing (BPO) arm, Apollo Health Street, Reddy said that the company was interested to dilute stakes to companies which are into the same line of business. It has been approached by a few private investors, but the decision is not to dilute stakes to private investors, he said.

AHEL, which is conducting robotic surgeries from four centres, including Chennai and Kolkata, is planning to install the robotic surgery equipment in two more centres in the current financial year, Reddy said. It would require around Rs 15 crore for a single robot, a minimally-invasive technology which is said to be effective for surgery in obese and diabetic patients.

The robots are currently patented by California-based Intuitive Surgicals Inc, for which the patent is expected to expire by the end of this year. The price of the product may come down post the expiry of the product, which could then be manufactured by other companies, said experts in robotic surgery.