Global Health seminar: Financialisation of Healthcare in India

Event details

Authors:

Sonia Sebastian, Satyaki Roy and Indranil Mukhopadhyay

Abstract:

The healthcare landscape in India has been moving increasingly towards privatisation and corporatisation. With the onset of neoliberal reforms, health has become a commodity instead of a fundamental right of every citizen, whose market is a hugely profitable avenue for capital and sought-after means of capital accumulation. This transformation is facilitated by both industry advocacy and government policy measures such as private-public partnerships and promoting private investment in healthcare infrastructure (Chakravarti 2013). Several key trends in the corporatisation of health services in India include the rise of corporate hospital chains and its vertical integration with pharmaceuticals, diagnostics, and medical devices into a cohesive "medical-industrial complex," and the privatisation of health financing through insurance. Corporations have also expanded into medical education, contributing to workforce commercialisation. In this paper, we attempt to study the trends and patterns of the structural changes in private investment in healthcare industry. To study the private investment, we have looked at the private equity and venture capital investments in healthcare industry with special focus on the hospital sector for the period of 2000-2024. We have used two databases subscribed from the private research firm Venture Intelligence to understand the private investments in the healthcare industry, namely Private Equity and Venture Capital (PEVC) and Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). We have also conducted a review of Union Government policies to understand the changing nature of incentives provided over time.

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