Chennai: With about 10-12 per cent of its revenue coming from cancer treatment alone, healthcare major Apollo Hospitals has made an investment of Rs 400 crore towards bringing in advanced proton therapy for cancer patients to India.
The hospital major has also lined up an expansion plan to the tune of Rs 2000 crore for the next three years.
Reiterating the focus on cancer therapy, Dr Pratap C Reddy, group chairman of Apollo Hospitals, said “More than 25 per cent of our overseas patients come for cancer care. We want to increase cancer survival rates from the current level of 40 per cent to 60 per cent.”
He was speaking at a function to mark the hospital’s MoU with Belgium-based Ion Beam Applic-ations to set up proton therapy centre in Chennai.
“We want to bring a proton therapy costs do-wn to Rs 30 lakh which is ‘one-fifth’ of the cost offered in the US.Earlier, Apollo used to set up only 2-3 hospitals every three years. But now, we have fast-paced to 14 hospitals in next 30 months with cancer cure is being a major part of it”, he added.
As part of our overall expansion plans, Apollo plans to open 14 hospitals in the next three years at an investment of Rs 2,000 crore.
“The company will raise funds through structured debts and cash accruals,” said group CFO Krishnan Akhileshwaran.The company has a debt of around Rs 650 crore, which would go up to Rs 2,000 crore after cash accruals when it invests in new facilities by financial year 2015-16, he added.
“As we hive-off Apollo Healthstreet, another Rs 200 crore would be available for us for overall expansion,” Krishan said.
Sutherland Global Services acquired Apollo’s BPO division Apollo Healthstreet in a Rs 1,000-crore all cash-deal. The deal would be completed next month, he added.