Indian Drug Magnate Sets Sights on Health Care Sector

Indian Drug Magnate Sets Sights on Health Care Sector - NYTimes.com

Interesting story - tracks the history of Ranbaxy, as well as how the next generations take ideas learnt in advanced markets and apply them to staid domestic companies - thereby increasing valuations and opening new markets. The move to make Fortis the hospital provider of choice for a pan-Asian population is very savvy: "Last year, the Indian health care market was estimated at $38 billion, and given the country’s fast-growing, increasingly affluent population, more and more Indians are suffering from lifestyle diseases common to developed countries. India already has the largest number of diabetics in the world after China, for example, yet Indians still spend only $55 a year on health care. 

“There’s a huge gap in India,” said Mr. Singh. “The health care market in India is very fragmented. The corporatization of health care is still emerging.” 

While 70 percent of the country’s hospitals are government-run, private hospitals treat 70 percent of all patients, he said. And most private hospitals are small, with fewer than 30 beds, providing a big opportunity for larger operators like Fortis to use economies of scale to lower prices and increase profits. By introducing more advanced treatment methods, Fortis also aims to lower the average stay per patient, allowing it to increase volume..."

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Hospice medical care for dying patients : The New Yorker

Hospice medical care for dying patients : The New Yorker

An interesting article - and one which all of us have to face at some point. Regardless of which end of the political spectrum you come from, there is no easy solution: "The subject seems to reach national awareness mainly as a question of who should “win” when the expensive decisions are made: the insurers and the taxpayers footing the bill or the patient battling for his or her life. Budget hawks urge us to face the fact that we can’t afford everything. Demagogues shout about rationing and death panels. Market purists blame the existence of insurance: if patients and families paid the bills themselves, those expensive therapies would all come down in price. But they’re debating the wrong question. The failure of our system of medical care for people facing the end of their life runs much deeper. To see this, you have to get close enough to grapple with the way decisions about care are actually made..."

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