One of the biggest achievements of Apollo Hospitals has been the opening of the Apollo Proton Cancer Centre in Chennai in 2019 at an investment of ₹1,300 crore. Even today, the only other similar facility in the region is Mumbai’s Tata Memorial Centre. “When we brought the first proton for Chennai, the U.K. did not have one. Even now they do not have one. All of Southeast Asia, including Singapore, South Korea... no one had. Australia didn’t have one. Two-thirds of the world did not have proton,” says Dr Reddy. In proton therapy there is no entry or exit load from radiation.

Apollo Hospitals has three divisions — healthcare services, digital health, and pharmacy distribution and diagnostics and retail health. Healthcare services account for 52% of revenues followed by 6,030 outlets under digital health and pharmacies that account for 41% of revenues. The balance 7% is accounted for by diagnostics.

The hospital chain Reddy built is now run by his four daughters — Suneeta Reddy, MD; Sangita Reddy, JMD; Shobana Kamineni, promoter director and Preetha Reddy, executive vice chairperson. While the focus on cardiology and oncology stays, Apollo now has 36 algorithms in use in the AI space. At the core is the clinical intelligence engine, an AI-based online symptom checker, built to assist doctors with real-time clinical decisions in primary care.

Interestingly, Dr Reddy set up the first hospital when he was 50 years old. “I was not then, and even now I’m not an entrepreneur,” he says. What he did was select the right people to run the organisation. “It’s they who are driving it. But we have a good monitoring system, thanks to technology.”

A consequence of developing high quality hospitals has been the emergence of medical tourism in the country. Unlike in the U.K. and the U.S., where it takes a month to get a specialist, in India you can get an appointment on time. “If it’s necessary, you can get it right away. And your test can be done in no time. That is because abroad, there is a shortage of doctors, nurses, and technology,” says Dr Reddy.

Lifetime Achievement/ Apollo Hospitals Group/ Dr Prathap C. Reddy

Apollo’s Healthcare Architect