Sanjeev Sinha, President of India-Japan Partnership Fund and Group led a series of bilateral interactions on healthcare in Tokyo, including multiple focused meetings and a roundtable during July and August 2018.
Opening the forum Sinha pointed out the strong appetite for funding and technology transfer from Japan to India in the healthcare domain. He emphasized on the Japanese government's support on the matter, referring to his discussions with Japanese Prime Minister's Office and other ministries and government agencies for collaboration with India.
Sinha outlined the challenges and the solutions as evidenced in his interactions with the wide-ranging stakeholders in many on-going efforts from Japan to build hospitals overseas. He advocated a holistic approach of funding the premium quality Japanese technology in India by the abundant low-cost Japanese capital for enhanced overall feasibility, as undertaken by India-Japan Partnership Fund, he noted.
Sinha elaborated on the sophisticated funding models involving equipment leases, services outsourcing, REITs, SPVs, combining private equity and debt, for compliance in the healthcare field. Sinha also pointed out the need for high-quality logistics, diagnostics, medical IT, skill development and even the hospital architecture to efficiently deploy Japanese technology as a package, a model on which various entities within India-Japan Partnership Group are working on. This complements very well with India's fast-growing demand for high-quality healthcare and insufficient supply as yet, Sinha continued.
Sinha recalled the participation from Satish Reddy of Dr. Reddy's on the IIT Alumni Conference in 2007 and India-Japan Pharma interaction with Dr. Rajiv Modi of Cadila, which significantly contributed to fast-growing presence of Indian pharma companies in the very lucrative Japanese medicine market.
Sinha also recalled the request from Japanese Science and Technology agency for other measures for cost reduction in the predominant innovation drug sector, including direct CRO for clinical trials in India, unlike hitherto route via the USA, and the subsequent role of GVK Biosciences and other leading companies of India in the process.
More From This Section
The forum held in Marunouchi was also attended by Ambassador Hirabayashi former Ambassador of Japan to India and member of the board of Dai Ichi Sankyo and Toshiba, a leading medical equipment manufacturer, who shared his experiences from Dai Ichi Sankyo and Ranbaxy affair.
Kikuchi Yukihiko, President of Sun and Sands Innovation, former MD of Morgan Stanley and UBS Japan, shared his experiences of managing a hospital in Japan. This was followed by Komiya Yuji, President of IJPG Asia Capital and former Managing Partner of Tokio Marine Capital.
The Forum was well attended by presidents and executives of healthcare management funds and investors and academicians including professors of Medicinal Chemistry and Regenerative Medicine from Osaka and Kyoto Universities. Leading figures from the Indian healthcare industry also joined and shared their views in an interactive roundtable format. Sunil Rajput, President of IJPG Kyoto Kashi, working on pharmaceutical technology transfer from Japan to India, among other domains, made the closing remarks.
Sinha shared that India-Japan Partnership Group is at an advanced stage of discussion for building hospitals in India with Japanese collaboration and also helping Indian Medical AI companies with market and funding in Japan.