Narayana Health to add 2,000 beds, expand insurance schemes in FY26

Hospital chain plans bed expansion, insurance scheme growth, and integrated care push; unveils AI heart tool to boost diagnostics and maintain momentum in FY26

Bengaluru-headquartered hospital chain Narayana Health aims to grow its domestic revenue by 10 per cent in FY26, in line with industry benchmarks, a senior company official said.

 

Managing director and chief executive officer Emmanuel Rupert told Business Standard: “Last fiscal we did about Rs 4,349 crore in India revenue and we want to grow at a rate at which the healthcare industry is growing — over 10 per cent. We look to be on the same momentum and revenue.”

 

Sandhya J, chief financial officer at Devi Shetty’s Narayana Health, said the company plans to scale up its Aditi and Arya health insurance schemes in Karnataka and West Bengal. “The entire healthcare ecosystem is failing in trust. We are on the path to solve the trust deficit and episodic interference of fund transfer. On the back of this, we aim to double down on our insurance scheme and build a strong customer base in Bengaluru, Shivamogga, Mysore, and Kolkata.”

 

Commenting on efforts to improve profit after tax (PAT), which declined 2.3 per cent to Rs 196 crore in Q1 due to increased investments in integrated care and other financial costs, Sandhya said PAT optimisation will improve as the India business grows. Some clinics have started breaking even, reducing losses from the health insurance schemes.

 

“Over a period of time, we will be able to keep the losses in check and expand margins in the domestic business. PAT should improve. Finance cost will continue to increase due to the Rs 3,000 crore project to add 2,000 beds across India over the next three years. The integrated care dilution will continue over the next year but we hope to maintain a decent level of cash burn.” 

 

She added that a large part of the funding will come through bank borrowings and non-convertible debentures (NCDs) as needed. So far, Rs 800 crore has been raised for projects already signed.

 

The CFO noted that about Rs 1,500–2,000 crore in loans might be raised in this fiscal, depending on upcoming project developments. “We are exploring opportunities to expand, some might be inorganic as well. Borrowings will be linked to the construction progress of our current projects.”

 

During the quarter, revenue from international patients declined, primarily due to reduced footfall from Bangladesh. Narayana expects this trend to continue, given ongoing geopolitical tensions.

 

“The goal is to keep focusing on domestic growth and see how well we can push the numbers. Eventually, in the next two to three years, we believe that revenue contribution from Bangladesh will go down to zero. Not to miss, the country is building its own healthcare infrastructure.”

 

Looking ahead, Narayana expects its integrated care business to account for a larger share of overall revenue. At present, cardiac sciences and oncology contribute approximately 33 per cent and 16 per cent, respectively.

 

On Tuesday, the Clinical Research team and Medha AI developed an artificial intelligence (AI) model that predicts left ventricular ejection fraction from ECG images, enabling early heart failure detection and improved diagnostic access. 

 

“All along we have waited for Western countries to develop these technologies. Today we are developing this because this country is blessed with phenomenally skilled, passionate software engineers and AI experts. This is our strength. We have made massive investments in building the digital platform, which is far ahead of all the other hospitals. With the great combination of a digital platform and the AI tool, healthcare will never be the same,” said Devi Prasad Shetty, chairman and founder of Narayana Health, at a media briefing.

 

The company said that trained on over 100,000 ECG images paired with echocardiogram reports, the model showed strong predictive performance. With external validation across 14 tertiary centres and over 57,000 patients, it identified 97 per cent of individuals with severely reduced ejection fraction (≤35 per cent).