Friday, January 22, 2016

STARTUP SPECIAL........... Fit as a Fiddle

Fit as a Fiddle


Portea is counting on a full-blown boom in demand for home healthcare services

It didn't take much time for the Ganeshs to decide which sector to foray next after selling online education company TutorVista to UK publishing giant Pearson in early 2013 for $213 million. The husband-wife duo's choice was dictated by a personal experience.
In 2010, a member of Meena Ganesh's immediate family was diagnosed with cancer. “We experienced, first-hand, the difficulties in taking care of a terminally-ill person,“ recalls Meena, adding that it made her realise that there was a genuine dearth of options for medical care at home in India.Access to healthcare was a big pain point, and while India had worldclass tertiary care facilities, any healthcare infra outside of corporate hospitals in metros was nonexistent.
“There was simply no organised, branded, high quality and reliable home healthcare provider,“ she points out. Of the $80 billion healthcare industry in India, $40 billion is non-tertiary care and there are no credible players in this space, informs Ganesh. “While treatment can be carried at a hospital, healing happens best in a home environment,“ she adds.
Along with husband Ganesh Krishnan, Meena forayed into the healthcare segment with Portea in June 2013. Por tea, which start ed from a small office, with a skeletal team and less than 50 customers across two cities, is now India's largest home healthcare company, asserts Meena, who dishes out numbers to show how quickly the com pany has grown.
From just two cities in 2013, Portea is now present across 24 cities in India and four cities in Malaysia; it has taken its headcount from 50 in 2013 to over 3,500; and from around 50 patients using its services per day in 2013, the numbers now stand at over 2,000. It is also betting big on the inorganic route: while in October 2015 Portea bought specialty pharmaceutical distributor Medybiz Pharma, it is set to close two more acquisitions in a few weeks, claims Meena, adding that the company also plans to expand to the entire South East Asia over the next two years.
Meena believes the company has barely scratched the surface.India is greying at a rapid rate and faces a major crisis in the paucity of options for geriatric care and managing the burden of chronic disease. At present, India's 100 million seniors constitute 8% of the population, and the figure is expected to touch 324 million by 2050 when seniors will account for 20% of the population. “Because of increas ing longevity and the rise of nuclear families, the demand for elder care is increasing exponentially.“
Add to this the explosion of noncommunic able diseases. By 2050, of the 324 million over-60s, 200 million are likely to be suffering from chronic ailments, underscoring the multipronged nature of the problem con fronting the country.“The industry in the next 10 years will grow to over $15 billion in India from $3 billion today,“ asserts Meena.

ETM3JAN16

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