Dr. Amit Varma: The Promise of Indian Healthcare’s Private Sector
By Sandhya Mishra
Dr Amit Varma, a Healthcare investor of the year awardee for his firm Quadria Capital in an interview with Sandhya Mishra shares a vision broader than year 2020 itself.
From a Delhite geek to renowned Critical Care Physician to spearheading international expansion initiatives for Fortis, to Co-Founding Quadria Capital, a US$600 m Asian healthcare PE fund. Dr Amit Varma is indeed a feisty leader who dominated the healthcare industry with a lot of grit and determination. Today Quadria Capital is Asia's leading healthcare private equity firm focused on theme-driven growth investing.
Dr Varma completed his residency from the State University of New York and went on to pursue a Fellowship in Critical Care Medicine and Neonatology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and super specialized in Cardiac Critical Care. Having practiced in the domain for over 20 years, including a decade in the USA, Dr Varma has extensive M&A, strategic and operational leadership and board level experience in healthcare organizations across USA, Asia and Australia. He has also served as an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh and the Cleveland Clinic, thus wearing a multiple hats and still managing to practice as a critical care physician to stay connected to clinical medicine, patients, and physicians.
For the hospitals and other healthcare segments who has little skin in the game, private equity funds are helping them by more than just scrape the bottom of the barrel and increasing ROI manifold. To those who have been following the space, it’s no surprise that 2019 has been a record year for PE funding in healthcare. In spite of market volatility, the private equity and venture capital investments in healthcare and health tech companies grew by 16.3 per cent in 2019 to $3.62 billion, from $3.11 billion, a year ago. Almost 58 per cent of these investments were in the health-tech segment.
Quadria Capital, a health care-focused Asian private equity investor is one of the most successful PE firms which has assets under management of more than $1.5 billion, with investment in more than 18 companies across the Asia-Pacific region.
On our anniversary issue, Sandhya Mishra speaks to Dr Amit Varma, Co-Founding Managing Partner of Quadria Capital to share his vision 2020 about healthcare sector.
Dr Varma says, “Innovation is disrupting and transforming the landscape of healthcare business in India. We are witnessing this across all forms of healthcare services and products”
“The major trends driving innovation are consumer convenience, awareness, efficiency, clinical resource augmentation. These trends are being manifested in models like tele-medicine, tele-radiology, work flow management, e-pharmacy, doctor discovery and appointment, digital pathology etc. Some of the perceptible trends have be elaborated as follows:
AI in Healthcare: several services and product companies are using AI to streamline their offerings and utilize for creating efficiency, accuracy and resource management. Hospital and clinics are using to provide clinical care inorder to enhance efficiency. Some study predict AI to help achieve 10-15% increase in productivity in next two-three years.
Big Data to result in preventive care: Expected to see analytics solutions which will strive to investigate treatment viability, drug utilization, and self-care programmes specific to chronic conditions.
Block chain to bring healthcare efficiencies: Expected to solve security problems related to data exchange and is now especially being used in supply chain.
Cloud technology and EMR: Helps in making healthcare services organised, convenient and cost effective. It provides quickest and easiest access to clinical applications and CRM.
Insurance models for preventive healthcare: To ensure better growth prospects of the industry, companies are focusing on providing personalized healthcare policies that are driven by data and IoT to reduce potential claims.
Home Healthcare: Home ICUs being considered both feasible and comforting represents a change on the horizon in terms of critical care in India. It can save nearly 60% of hospital-stay charges while the quality of medical equipment and round-the-clock nurses and doctors are feeding the trend.
Point-of-care diagnostics: Frugal models using Point-of-care diagnostics that can work on low bandwidth are being used to provide access to basic diagnostics to people in rural areas. It is mainly prevalent in the biochemistry and assay-reagent based diagnoses.
Clinical research and trials: Big data is being used across the value chain in pharma discovery right from candidate selection to development and clinician trials including patient selection.
According to Dr Amit, the inclusive, holistic and precision healthcare are shaping healthcare in a broader sense. He says, “Government has brought healthcare at the center of policy making with the objective of providing healthcare to all. Secondly there is a significant awareness and push by the government to move towards holistic healthcare which starts with proper nutrition, prevention and wellness. Lastly, world over, there is a realization that precision medicine is far more effective than the current regime of one size fits all.”
“India, given the size of the county, population and varied demography presents a significant challenge for any policy maker. Further lack of resources, coherent and comprehensive policy and political drive pushed India to the rear end of the global healthcare map. That said, over the last few years, the government has brought healthcare at the center of policy making and that is throwing up many opportunities for the private sector, especially the ones that are using technology and innovative business models.
These opportunities are directed towards solving issues of access, affordability, quality efficiency and convenience. The winners in the new healthcare era will be the ones who can align with these needs of the market.
As we move ahead, the big issues of financing, holistic healthcare approach, infrastructure and clinical resourcing will shape the healthcare. All these issues are being tackled simultaneously and the responsibility is well distributed between public and private sector. The government has launched the world’s biggest public insurance scheme, PMJAY and also launched wellness centers across the country. This will bring c. 500 million people in the insurance fold and it suddenly increases the insurance penetration from 35% to 75% of the population base. Private sector, with the help of FDI support, is helping build infrastructure and convert an acute care centered infrastructure to a more relevant chronic and balanced infrastructure. There is significant investment going in to increase the clinical resourcing.”