Oncology care major, HealthCare Global Enterprises (HCG), has invested around Rs.18 crore to set up an independent cancer treatment unit within Kauvery Multi Speciality Hospital at Chennai. The move takes the total number of hospitals in the HCG network to 25.

The new facility known as the Kauvery HCG Cancer Centre has a bed strength of 50 and can be expandable to 100. Currently, eight oncologists would man this unit and the medical expertise strength will be increased to 15 in the next three months. There is a huge demand for cancer diagnosis and treatment in Chennai, Dr B S Ajaikumar, chairman, HCG told Pharmabiz in a telecom interaction.

The healthcare major, which has been raising funds via private equity and venture funding route made the Rs.18 crore investment through internal accruals. The centre is equipped with the latest in radiation therapy ‘TrueBeam’. In fact HCG was the first hospital in the country to introduce TrueBeam at Ahmedabad and to use the flattening filter free (FFF) linear accelerator technology for advanced radiotherapy.

In March this year, the KMC Group of Hospitals was rebranded as the Kauvery Multi speciality tertiary care hospital, centrally located at Alwarpet. The 200 bed centre offers all specialities barring oncology and the onus of offering cancer care was on HCG. “We were involved right from the inception of setting of this new facility at Alwarpet and the entire Rs.18 crore investment went in for infrastructure including equipment”, said Dr Kumar.

While the centre was inaugurated by Chennai Mayor, Saidai Duraiswamy, the advanced radiation therapy centre was opened by actress R Radhika Sharath Kumar.

“With the launch of an advanced cancer care centre in Chennai, we intend to redefine the approach to cancer care treatment with the introduction of latest in technology and expertise. This centre will benefit from our talent pool of 425 oncologists across 25 cancer centres under one national tumour board”, said Dr Kumar.

“With the growing cancer incidence in Chennai, approximately 1 out of 854 people diagnosed every year with cancer, we needed a comprehensive cancer centre”, said Dr Alex Prasad, director, radiation oncology, Kauvery HCG Cancer Centre.

In May this year, the Bengaluru-based HCG bagged the accreditation from National Accreditation Board for Hospitals & Healthcare Providers (NABH), College of American Pathologists (CAP), State of Illinois, and National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories (NABL). It became the first cancer centre in the country to be acknowledged for its quality standards in patient care from three distinguished accreditation bodies.

It also invested Rs.25 crore to set up a dedicated liver transplantation unit in April this year where it received a financial assistance of Rs.31.20 crore from Milestone Religare Investment Advisors Pvt. Ltd in early 2010. With this, it brought down the cost of transplants from Rs.30 lakh to Rs.13 lakh.