Times Private Treaties' Health Parnerships Enabling New Category Creation in Medical Services

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Times Private Treaties investments in healthcare include HCG Oncology, Thyrocare, Apollo Clinics, Wockhardt Hospitals, Lifecell, Richfeel, Evolve, Institute of Clinical Research, Lotus Eye Care Hospital and Avesthagen, among others.

Times Private Treaties partnerships have assisted organizations in the healthcare and medical services sector. Investments in advanced medical services for providers such as Thyrocare, Apollo Clinics, Lifecell and HCG Oncology have supported creation of interesting category of services. From creating a new diagnostic services market to drumming up a new concept in blood stem cell banks, each of these pioneers needed high degree of discerning awareness about new options of treatment, solutions and services. Today, Times Private Treaties investments in Health care range from HCG Oncology, Thyrocare, Apollo Clinics, Wockhardt Hospitals, Lifecell, Richfeel, Evolve, Institute of Clinical Research, Lotus Eye Care Hospital and Avesthagen, among others.

For instance, when Thyrocare ventured into creating a brand for outsourced diagnostic services for diabetes, thyroid, arthritis, cardio and complete health screening, there was no concept of patients from across the country sending samples to a single laboratory. Consequently, access to diagnostic tests was dependent upon the workload of individual hospitals. Further, both patients and doctors believed that while diagnostic tests were essential to validate initial diagnosis, the tests were expensive, entailed delays and were often of uncertain quality. With the Times Private Treaties partnership, Thyrocare was able to launch an advertising campaign and fundamentally change the way in which hospitals, doctors and patients look at diagnostic services. Today, Thyrocare carries out 50,000 investigations per day in its laboratory, serviced by over 10,000 collection points across the country. Thyrocare has not only created a new category, it is that much closer to attaining its stated objective of “serving 50 per cent of the diagnostic needs of 50 per cent of the country’s population at 50 per cent cost”. In a sense, the Times Private Treaties investment business model helped Thyrocare create a brand where branding did not exist.

A similar expansion of the market has been seen in oncology with the Bangalore based HealthCare Global Enterprises Limited (HCG) which owned and managed a network of cancer centers including the Bangalore Institute of Oncology, the Curie Center of Oncology, the Bharath Hospital and the Institute of Oncology in Mysore, the Malnad Hopsital and Institute of Oncology in Shimoga. The challenges were in the entire bandwidth of cancer awareness to treatment and the key lay in positioning HCG as “one stop shop” for cancer cure. A successful advertising campaign has not only raised the profile of HCG but doubled its topline in a little over a year, expanded the total number of Cancer Treatment Centres and made popular the Cyberknife © treatment.

Says Dr Ajai of HCG, “In the beginning there was apprehension, but as the relationship progressed we realized that Private Treaties played a very crucial role in the launch of the HCG logo and Cyberknife.”

An equally successful brand building platform has taken place in partnership with the Apollo Hospitals Group which had launched Apollo Clinics and wanted to create a new category in ‘The Cradle” a boutique child birth model. The key brand challenge was to communicate the facilities, quality and geographical reach while dealing with the phobia of hospitals. Today, the Cradle has been launched in four cities, with 20 more in the pipeline. Ratan Jalan of Apollo Clinics adds, “Being a New Category, it was important to establish a brand like the Apollo Clinic through enhanced visibility. A treaty with the Times was an effective solution to the right reach.”

A more revolutionary concept lay in Life Cell, India’s first exclusive private cord blood stem cell bank in India. The company was set up back in 2004 with a technology, licence and collaboration agreement with Cryo Cell International. However, the whole concept of collecting, processing, preserving and storing the umbilical cord blood of a child was both new and virtually unheard of even though there were a number of hospitals and service providers who did offer a blood stem cell banking service. Says S Abhaya Kumar, Vice Chairman, LifeCell, Asia Cryocell, “Establishing this concept in our country requires creating awareness through clinical evidence, customer experience, research and accomplishments. Our engagement with Times Private Treaties has helped us reach our target audience.”

Life Cell today has extended its network from eight cities to more than 40 cities in India and abroad, opened a storage facility in Kelambakkam and set up a Step Cell research lab in collaboration with Sri Ramachandra Medical College.

The Times Private Treaties innovative approach to offer companies a fast track for brand building has helped patients and medical services connect as never before. Even as India’s medical services and infrastructure go through a huge transition, investors in medical services are able to reach out to national audiences by creating through the Times Private Treaties advertising campaigns that build both awareness and brands.

Source: Just Invested