Fidelity Fund Management, part of Fidelity International, is planning investments in the life sciences segment. The company is looking at an investment of $200-$400 million by the end of this year through this foray.
Speaking during the sidelines of ‘The ISB Healthcare and Pharma Conclave – Lens on emerging markets’ held in Hyderabad, Jasmin Patel, MD, said that this would be its first foray in the country focusing on pharmaceutical sector.
‘‘We are in close coordination with a few life sciences company and hope to close the deals by the end of this year,'' he said.
The PE firm has invested about $40 million in a few companies which includes infrastructure and technology telecom company. One third of the total investments would be in the life sciences segment, he said adding that would include biotech companies, specialty hospitals, etc. When queried about the recent financial downturn, he said that investments in the healthcare sector are bound to go up with rationalistic valuations.
The total PE investments in healthcare segment was about $10 billion 2007 and healthcare has been a top 10 investments for PE money.
However, some analysts predict that there would be 50% slowdown in PE investment by 2010. The drivers for the growth in the PE investments include poor state of health in the country, nature of infrastructure for health, global R&D drought, global cost pressures and fragmented healthcare services, Patal informed.
In another development, Zinnov Management Consulting, one of the leading management consultancy firms, released the findings of an in-depth study on the ‘Indian Pharmaceutical Offshoring Landscape’.
The study provides a detailed analysis of the Indian pharmaceutical offshoring industry which is slated to become a $2.5 billion opportunity by 2012. One of the key factors driving the offshoring wave is increasing R&D costs, which in-turn is compelling Pharmaceutical organizations in the US and EU to look for new low cost R&D destinations such as India and China.
According to the study, the Indian pharma sector is also growing robustly and is expected to move from being domestic led to exports driven by 2010.
A transition is also being observed in the growth of pharmaceutical markets from the top seven established pharmaceutical markets to emerging markets like India, China, Brazil, Mexico, South Korea, and Russia – which will grow at 12-13 % in 2008, and become $85-90 billion markets, captures the study.
Source: Financial Express