UAE: Apollo Hospitals to return to the UAE

Apollo Hospitals, India’s biggest hospital chain, is looking to return to the UAE by the end of the year. This is more than a decade after its exit to focus on expansion in India.

The nature of Apollo’s return remains unclear, but Market Report Gazette reports that it may include developing new, super-specialty hospitals or taking over management of existing ones.

Apollo does not intend to develop primary or secondary hospitals due to the increased capacities seen in the UAE in these categories.

Apollo chief executive Hari Prasad is reported as saying that the opportunities in UAE healthcare were in the super-specialty space. The most suitable options for them would be to have the existing players’ operations’ scope expanded; they could invest in projects there that they found financially viable.

Prasad added that it was also looking at Saudi Arabia and that Apollo has worked as technical partner there.

Apollo Hospitals currently operates 25 facilities in India, a 450-bed facility in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a facility in Muscat, Oman.