How Prathap Chandra Reddy propelled Apollo Hospitals into a new orbit

The struggle that he went through in setting up a private health care facility in the India of the 1980s is part of folklore

At a party to celebrate Apollo 11’s landing on the moon back in 1969, a young Dr Prathap C Reddy realised that around 40 per cent of NASA’s manpower at the time were Asians, of which the majority were Indians. But he was not aware that Apollo would be the name he would choose for his dream health care mission, too.

In 1983, when he was zeroing in on a name for his Chennai hospital, his daughter Suneeta Reddy (the current managing director) suggested the name Apollo, the Greek god of healing. However, selecting the name of a venture at