HCL Corp. founder and chairman Shiv Nadar and Sanjay Kalra, a former top executive at HCL Technologies Ltd, have joined hands to set up an investment firm, the company said in a statement on Monday.
The firm plans to focus on healthcare technology investments in the US. To begin with, the newly-formed firm Shiv Nadar & Sanjay Kalra Associates (SNSK) will invest $500 million to buy out IT product and platform companies across providers, payers, pharma and life sciences, “which are either disrupting or being disrupted by the confluence of regulatory changes, evolving consumer attitudes, changing demographics and emerging technologies”, the statement said.
“The US healthcare industry is undergoing radical transformation with the Affordable Care Act. Evolving thought and business models have little semblance to present mechanisms,” Nadar said in the statement.
The US health information technology market is expected to reach $22.6 billion by 2017, compared with $15.9 billion in 2012, according to a report from R&R Market Research.
This is not the first time HCL has shown its interest in tapping healthcare as a sector.
In February last year, the company announced its foray into the healthcare sector by launching HCL Healthcare in partnership with Johns Hopkins Medicine International of the US. With an initial investment of Rs.1,000 crore, HCL Healthcare aimed to reach out to 20 million patients, mostly from India’s growing middle-class, by 2020.
The firm also plans to invest in select early stage US and Indian companies with the focus on areas including hospitals, ambulatory, long term acute care, physician practice, information exchanges, self-funded and commercial insurers as well as insurance exchanges.
“SNSK is an operating team with Capital. Our relationship capital, trust and Shiv as a mentor are the most valuable elements we bring to our portfolio companies,” said Kalra, who serves as the chairman, SNSK. “We will support management teams to unlock value in their companies through our entrepreneurial passion, engineering heritage and global operating experience.”
Over the next five years, “SNSK aspires to be an engine of accelerating digital solutions that would make patient care more accountable, efficient, predictable and effective,” said Nadar.
