DaVita buys stake in multi-specialty care chain Express Clinics

US-based DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc, a leading international kidney care service provider, has acquired a strategic stake in PE-backed Express Clinics Pvt Ltd for an undisclosed amount. The move also marks the expansion of DaVita's business beyond dialysis for the first time, as per a VCCircle report.

Pune-based Express Clinics offers a variety of services including consultations with general physicians and specialists, pathology and radiology and custom health packages. It currently operates 26 clinics in Pune, Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Express Clinics is promoted by Brij Sharma, a serial entrepreneur who has started companies like MDIndia Healthcare Services (TPA) Pvt. Ltd. and Tela Sourcing, Inc. In 2012, Somerset Indus Capital Partners, a private equity firm focused on making healthcare investments in India, had picked a stake in the company.

"We are extremely excited that this partnership provides Express Clinics the ability to leverage DaVita HealthCare Partners' expertise in creating best-in-class clinical outcomes," said Brij Sharma, founder of Express Clinics.

"We're exceptionally excited to deliver primary and multi-specialty care in India, a country where we are already one of the leading dialysis providers. What is perhaps most exciting is the opportunity to partner with one of the top primary, multi-specialty players in that arena, Express Clinics," said Kent Thiry, co-chairman and CEO of DaVita HealthCare Partners.

DaVita HealthCare Partners, a Fortune 500 company, is the parent company of DaVita Kidney Care and HealthCare Partners. The company provides dialysis services to patients with end-stage renal disease.

It has provided administrative services at 2,119 outpatient dialysis centres in US serving around 168,000 patients as of June 30, 2014, and also operated 84 outpatient dialysis centres located in 10 countries outside the US.

DaVita already has a presence in India through DaVita NephroLife. It had first picked a minority stake in NephroLife along with PE firm NEA and later hiked its holding to get a majority stake and renamed the firm as DaVita NephroLife.