Healthcare is the new sunrise industry

posted February 15, 2017 at 07:24 pm by  Ray S. Eñano

The healthcare sector is emerging as the new sunrise industry, just like
the business process outsourcing companies when they began to
redefine information technology during the early part of the new
millennium.

Metro Pacific Investments Corp. was the first company to believe in the
bottom line potential of the healthcare sector when it began acquiring
hospitals in Metro Manila and the rest of the country. The
conglomerate’s hospital group is actively on the lookout for more
investments in the healthcare sector after getting GIC, Singapore’s
sovereign wealth fund through its private equity arm, as a strategic
partner for the hospital business.

MPIC unit Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings Inc. is acquiring as many as 15

more hospitals to achieve its goal of hitting 5,000 beds. The company
last year said it would invest in 10 to 15 hospitals to add around 2,000
more beds and expand existing medical facilities by another 700 to 800
beds to increase its presence in the sector across the country. 

MPIC’s hospital portfolio include the 110-bed Western Mindanao

Medical Center in Zamboanga City, Makati Medical Center, Asian
Hospital & Medical Center, Cardinal Santos Medical Center, Our Lady of
Lourdes Hospital, De Los Santos Medical Center, Davao Doctors Hospital,
Riverside Medical Center in Bacolod and Central Luzon Doctors Hospital
in Tarlac.

It also plans to venture into mall-based diagnostic and tele-health

centers through a joint venture with a leading Australian tele-health
service provider.

Another conglomerate, Ayala Corp., has also seen the growth potential
of the healthcare sector. QualiMed Hospital, a network of healthcare
facilities owned and operated by Ayala Land Inc. and Mercado General
Hospital, is on an expansion binge. After launching the 105-bed
Qualimed Hospital in San Jose Del Monte, Bulacan province, the
company was looking at Davao, Cebu, Cavite, Balintawak and Arca South
as potential sites for hospital expansion in line with the target to own 10
hospitals by 2020.

The group plans to build a 200-room to 300-room QualiMed Hospital in

Balintawak, its base hospital in the northern part of Metro Manila, and
another 200-room to 300-room Qualimed Hospital in Arca South, which
would be the group’s base hospital in the south of Metro Manila.

Philab innovates

2017 may turn into an auspicious year for the country’s healthcare
sector. Already, a few from the private sector are emerging as vital cogs
in helping deliver more modern, efficient and affordable healthcare
methods technologies to the Filipinos.

Among those at the private sector forefront of bringing modern

healthcare science systems and technologies is Filipino -owned Philab
Industries Inc. Philab started some five decades ago in building and
supplying medical facilities for hospitals, clinics and educational research
laboratories. 

It eventually forged ties with the Department of Health and Department

of Education, even teaming up with state-owned China Educational
Instrument & Equipment Corp., a commercial entity retained by the
China Ministry of Education, to equip some 38,000 schools in the
Philippines with Math and Science tools and facilities.

More recently, Philab has gone big into medical self-diagnosis

technology in the form of the country’s first dengue self-test kits. Philab
in a press briefing late last year, meanwhile, explained how it planned to
establish Asia’s first ever genome facility in the Philippines.

Defined by the World Health Organization as the study of genes and

their functions, and related techniques, genomics looks at and processes
the broad structure of all the genes of an organism and their relationship
with each other to determine its effect on the organism’s development.

The plan is to work closely with medical professionals and institutions in

using the information to track down potential health threats a person
may be pre-disposed to due to hereditary traits. 
Through genomic sequencing, a map of the person’s genome will be
produced which can guide doctors in order to prevent disease or
administer cure before it gets worse. Medical health practitioners look
at and process the broad structure of all the genes of an individual and
their relationship with each other to determine their effect on the
patient.

More importantly, people may know how to properly address their

body’s needs and live a longer, healthy guided lifestyle. The grapevine is
rife with rumors that Philab is at the cusp of formally establishing the
very first mid-market genomics facility in Asia.

Philab is also introducing the very first self-test kits in the country. The
company just completed the delivery of one million Dengue self-test kits
to the Department of Health as of last year. 

The company plans to make Dengue test kits commercially available

over-the-counter in the coming months. In addition, Philab is developing
other kits for Chikungunya and Malaria as well as plans to develop kits to
check for the use of illegal drugs.

These revolutionary self-test kits allow people to conduct their own

diagnostic tests at home—without the need or presence of a nurse or
doctor—and the diagnostic results are available within 20 minutes. 

E-mail: rayenano@yahoo.com or business@thestandard.com.ph or

extrastory2000@gmail.com

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