In a major effort to tap the niche ophthalmology care segment in India, Eye-Q, manned by a hospital entrepreneur, has planned a Rs 240 crore investment to set up an ophthalmic chain consisting of 30 eye hospitals and 70 affiliated centres throughout the country over the next five years.

The entrepreneur intends to open the facilities primarily in the district headquarters in the country so that patients can access high technology and good quality eye treatment for the growing number of disorders. Between May and August, his company has opened four facilities at Gurgaon, Rewari (Haryana), Haldwani (Uttarakhand) and Ganga Nagar (Rajasthan).

The proposed Rs 240 crore investment will be spread over the next five years. For the first and second phase of expansion, the company has sourced the funds from shareholders while the third phase would be funded through internal accruals. The first and second phase of the expansion will be completed by 2010. Eye-Q will follow a hub and spoke model and would set-up 30 specialty eye care hospitals and around 70 small eye-care centres throughout the country by 2012, Rajat Goel, managing director and CEO, Eye-Q told Pharmabiz.

The company is targeting Delhi and national capital region (NCR) in the first phase of expansion. They intend to cover the entire north India region by the second phase while they would have a pan-India presence through 30 hospitals by the end of third phase in 2012. The company is also looking at Karnataka for setting up centres barring Bangalore, Mysore, Hubli and Belgaum, it will open up facilities in the remaining 23 districts of the State, said the Eye-Q chief.

The company is keeping way from the metros and mini metros where good eye treatment centres already exist. Each centre will be manned by a dedicated a team of two ophthalmologists and a panel of specialists will visit the centres to offer their expertise on a rotation basis.

On the availability of ophthalmologists, Goel stated that at a macro level there is a shortfall but at micro level, the doctors prefer group practice over private practice based on a revenue sharing model. "Specialization in ophthalmology needs to be encouraged among medical graduates, continuous medical education programmes need to be organized and regular training will help the country to offset the shortfall of ophthalmologists," he added.

Eye-Q is targeting Rs 200 crore in revenues by 2012 and expects to close the first year of operations with a top-line of Rs seven crore, he stated.

As per the ophthalmology disorders data, India has around 52 million visually impaired people out of global figure of 1.08 billion people. Besides this, there are 320,000 children under the age of 16 who are blind. The eye disorders and diseases in the country are cataract, glaucoma, age related macular degeneration, dry eyes, conjunctivitis and vitamin A deficiency.

The leading eye hospitals in the country are Nethradhama, Narayana Nethrayalaya, Minto Hospital in Bangalore, Sankar Nethralaya, and Dr Aggrawal Hospital, Chennai, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, Aravind Eye Hospital, Madurai, LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, Aditya Jyot Eye Hospital, Mumbai, to name a few.