Fertility hospital chain may raise Rs 100 cr from PEs

ISIS Medicare plans to invest Rs 200 crore to expand to 12 cities over the next five years

Bangalore-based ISIS Medicare & Research Centre, which opened its first hospital in the city last week, may raise Rs 100 crore from private equity (PE) firms to fund part of its expansion plans.

The group plans to invest Rs 200 crore to expand to 12 cities over the next five years. "The first three units will be internally-funded. We have already concluded one round of discussions with two PE firms,'' says ISIS' founder-director Prasad (he doesn't use surname or initials).

The ISIS Medicare & Research Centre, named after the ancient Egyptian Goddess Isis, worshipped as the ideal mother and wife, as well as the patroness of nature and magic, offers services in infertility, infant and maternal health care.

ISIS' flagship hospital, which opened with an investment of Rs 15 crore, will be followed by 12 centres in the next five years. It will use the hub-and-spoke model in Karnataka and will later open facilities in Delhi, Hyderabad, Chennai, Kolkata and other major cities. Each centre will have 30-40 beds and ISIS plans to have over 400 beds across the 12 centres in the country. The second and third units of ISIS Medicare will come up at Bangalore's Whitefield area and Indiranagar in the next 18 months. Subsequently, ISIS will expand to other cities.

"Two decades ago, about 15 per cent of the population had infertility problems; today, it has risen to 20 per cent. This is more visible in the cities because of increased awareness. Besides, people are seeking medical intervention. We need more of counselling and focused treatment," says Ashalatha Ganesh, co-founder & director, ISIS Medicare.

According to her, long and stressful work hours, modern lifestyle habits, late marriages among working professionals, delayed pregnancy and environmental factor are some of the causes of infertility; this applies to both men and women. "Every third man has poor sperm count or poor sperm motility. A majority of these problems can be solved through treatment," says Ganesh, who worked for seven years with India's renowned infertility expert Baidyanath Chakraborty.

She has also published joint research papers with Chakraborty on fertility issues in international medical journals. With India offering the same quality of fertility treatment as in the developed nations at almost one-eighth of the cost, it is fast emerging as a top destination for Europeans and Africans for fertility treatment. ISIS Medicare hopes to leverage on this to build a nationwide fertility chain.