Global Hospitals which has slated a Rs 1000 crore investment initiative is now aggressively pursuing three focus areas which include multi organ transplant, cancer care and gastroenterology at its facility in Bangalore, known as BGS Global.

The company has already put to use its Rs 600 crore investment for both infrastructure and equipment installation and the remaining Rs 400 crore will be utilized to increase its current bed capacity from 1,750 beds to 3,000 beds by 2010. The funds have been raised through a combination of routes. These include venture capital assistance from Indivision Capital, a private equity fund managed by Future Capital Holdings, banks and support from the promoters of Global Hospital chain.

"Expansions are being made and we would look at both organic and inorganic paths to pursue our next phase of growth," Dr K Ravindranath, chairman and managing director, Global Hospitals told Pharmabiz.

"At the 500 bed BGS Global, we have already consolidated our presence in cardiology-cardiac surgery, minimally invasive surgery, accident, trauma, critical care, emergency medicine, Bariatric surgery, orthopaedics and joint replacement. Therefore, we are now aggressively moving towards our core specialty multi organ transplant here," he added.

In the multi organ transplant segment, BGS Global has the infrastructure and the specialists. It will carry out kidney, pancreas and liver transplant procedures. It has also received the necessary clearances from the Karnataka Health and Family Welfare department for the same.

Under oncology care, a separate unit is under way and will be commissioned by mid-January 2009. The 100 bed centre is a high-end 360 degree critical care for brain, liver and other life-threatening cancers. A team of 12 specialists are on the panel. It has also installed PET from GE Healthcare, cancer bunkers for advanced radiotherapies including Image guided radio therapy from Electra. In addition, stereo tactic radio surgery and X Knife procedures will be carried out.

In gastroenterology, BGS Global is the facility in the State to offer endosonography. This includes double balloon endosonography and pancreatic endotherapy for stone removal.

These efforts will now take us to the leadership status in surgical procedures and advanced care. In the next 3-4 months we would have created a bench mark in tertiary care, informed Dr Ravindranath.

As part of its aggressive growth efforts, the parent Global Hospitals has adopted the hub and spoke model and therefore has been on an acquisition spree. Acquisition of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Sankara Hospital, Chennai saw a 500 bed centre being commissioned recently. At Hyderabad it has opened up the Aware Global Hospitals which offers neuro sciences and cancer care. In Bangalore, it has taken possession of two locality specific hospitals and will acquire one more centre at Ramanagaram.

The Global Hospitals at Mumbai and Kolkata will be commissioned in mid 2009 and 2010 respectively.

"The hospital which has 300 top notch doctors will have another 200 as it expands. We already have a major focus on stem cell programme and is looking to offer cell therapy transplant," said Dr Ravindranath.