West Asia-based ART Fertility Clinics, owned by Gulf Capital, will invest ₹250 crore in setting up 18 clinics in key Indian cities in two years.
“Gulf Capital has pledged an investment of ₹250 crore in India for these 18 clinics. It is Gulf Capital’s biggest expansion plan because India is an emerging market,” said Vinesh Gadhia, CEO, ART Fertility Clinics India.
The company, which started operations in Delhi, Gurugram and Ahmedabad, would set up the clinics in Bengaluru, Mumbai, Kolkata, Hyderabad and Chennai by August- September. The rest would come up in other cities next year.
“Our basic ethos is to provide the best facility for best clinical outcomes, ensuring safety and adhering to highest standards of transparency. In West Asia, we have 67% pregnancy rate per embryo transfer, one of the highest in the world. We are bringing that expertise into India,” said Mr. Gadhia.
“We are extremely bullish about India’s macrodynamics because it has the highest number of young population, highest urge of parenthood in the world and an ever- changing lifestyle,” he added.
Since India currently reports 2,50,000 cycles per annum in 1,750 IVF centres (second highest after China), the company believes it is an extremely an under-penetrated market.
In India, more than 30 million couple suffer from sub-fertility or infertility and as per a research done by Mckinsey, anybody earning ₹10,000 per month can afford one cycle of IVF for the urge of parenthood.
As per this report 68% of India’s population can afford IVF.
According to Mr. Gadhia, India needs about 5,000 IVF centres to meet the demand.
ART he said adheres to a technology which is RFID bar coded to maintain the full transparency between the patients and the clinic.
“It eliminates the chances of human errors. We use sensor technology from the Netherlands to keep a check on humidity, temperature and PH levels for best clinical outcomes and we have one priced cycle for our patients, there are no hidden costs,” he said.
He said the company plans for a total of upto 40,000 cycles in 5 years with 1,250 cycles in the first year going up to 12,000 cycles in fifth year.
With this scale the Indian unit has immense potential to become a leader in clinical research in fertility, he added.
