So says Prem Kumar Nair, CEO of Asia\u2019s largest private health group, IHH Healthcare, as he grapples with an Asia that\u2019s wealthier, longer-lived, and far more willing to spend money on the finer things in life. \u201cAs populations grow more affluent and people indulge in good food and wine, we\u2019re seeing a rise in lifestyle diseases: diabetes, hypertension and high cholesterol,\u201d he points out in an interview with Fortune.<\/em><\/p>\n Asia is getting older. One in four people in the region will be older than 65 by 2050, according to the Asian Development Bank. Asians generally have longer life expectancies than those outside the region\u2014but longer lives aren\u2019t the same as healthier ones. A Stanford study published in April found that population aging accounted for 33.6% of the increase in disease burden across mainland China, Japan, Singapore, South Korea and Taiwan.\u00a0<\/p>\n IHH is stepping in with \u201cHealthspan\u201d, a new preventive health and longevity program launched in July. Unlike the aesthetics-driven wellness industry, IHH\u2019s Healthspan is built around clinical intervention. Though the program is now only offered in Singapore, Prem eventually hopes to bring it to IHH\u2019s nine other markets, which include India, Turkey and Greater China.<\/p>\n \u201cFor many people, longevity means aesthetics: coloring your hair, and taking a whole lot of vitamins and supplements. But for a healthcare provider like us, longevity is anchored very strongly in clinical science,\u201d Prem says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Take sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass. \u201cWe\u2019ll encourage older patients to do resistance training, not for them to build biceps, but to make sure that their muscles can hold them up and they don\u2019t fall and sustain knee or hip fractures,\u201d Prem explains.\u00a0<\/p>\n IHH\u2019s Healthspan program also leans on GLP-1 drugs, the class of medications (including Ozempic and Wegovy) that has become, in Prem\u2019s words, \u201cthe poster boy of longevity\u201d. Yet these drugs are tapped not for cosmetic weight loss, he stresses, but to prevent obesity-driven arthritis and metabolic disease.<\/p>\n As Asia\u2019s population ages, IHH is also building more ambulatory care centers\u2014smaller, community-based facilities that handle procedures like endoscopies and total knee replacements without a hospital admission\u2014in dense, rapidly graying cities like Singapore and Hong Kong. For example, the group\u2019s Parkway MediCentre, which is located in Singapore\u2019s Woodleigh district, offers chronic disease management services and consultations with dermatology and obstetrics and gynaecology specialists.<\/p>\n This marks a larger shift in how healthcare is administered globally, with many aging societies transitioning from hospital-centric care to more personalized and accessible options which are embedded in neighborhoods and communities.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe have transitioned from being a mega hospital player to a healthcare ecosystem player in all the countries that we are in,\u201d Prem says. \u201cThat\u2019s going to be the future of healthcare.\u201d<\/p>\n IHH Healthcare was incorporated in 2010, as a holding company for Malaysian sovereign wealth fund Khazanah Nasional Berhad\u2019s healthcare investments, which included Singapore-based Parkway, India-based Apollo, and Malaysia-based Pantai and IMU Health.<\/p>\n The entity was converted into a public company in 2012, and went public via a dual IPO on Malaysian bourse Bursa Malaysia and the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX). IHH\u2019s $2 billion IPO was the third-biggest listing globally that year, after Facebook and Malaysian palm oil firm Felda Global Ventures Holding.\u00a0<\/p>\n IHH shares are up by more than 20% over the past 12 months.<\/p>\n Today, IHH Healthcare has expanded to 89 hospitals across 10 countries; the firm, with 2025 revenue of approximately $6 billion, ranks No. 58 on Fortune<\/em>\u2019s Southeast Asia 500 list.\u00a0<\/p>\n IHH\u2019s early growth came primarily through acquisitions. In 2015, the firm acquired India-based Globe Healthcare; three years later, it took over Fortis Healthcare, another Indian brand.<\/p>\n That approach changed when Prem joined IHH in 2020, following 27 years at competitor Raffles Medical Group, when he instead redirected the company to focus on organic growth within its existing markets and businesses. (Since he took the helm, IHH Healthcare has added a total of 4,000 beds to its hospitals.)<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of investors were asking us whether M&As were an efficient way to grow, since each time we grow inorganically, we have to integrate the different entities,\u201d Prem says. \u201cEventually, we decided that the best form of growth is growing within our existing markets and clusters\u2026 organic growth is always better since the operational efficiency is there, as we\u2019re leveraging existing businesses and already have hospital executives in the country.\u201d<\/p>\n The most significant event in Prem\u2019s tenure\u2014at least in his eyes\u2014came right as he started the job, when the COVID-19 pandemic landed in Singapore. He was then IHH\u2019s Singapore CEO, and the global health emergency didn\u2019t lead to a \u201cnormal transition.\u201d Between 2020 and 2021, Singapore enacted several rounds of \u201ccircuit breakers\u201d: nationwide partial lockdowns which banned social gatherings, shuttered physical offices and mandated the donning of masks outdoors.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt was crisis management from the start,\u201d he recalls. During the early days of the pandemic, Prem and his team dispatched medical staff to Singapore\u2019s checkpoints for virus screening, as well as to foreign worker dormitories to care for workers who fell ill. (The purpose-built residences, where 10 to 24 construction workers share a living space, became the epicenter of the nation\u2019s outbreak, accounting for nearly 90% of cases.)<\/p>\n Yet the pandemic affirms Prem\u2019s view that the public and private sectors need to work together in a health crisis. \u201cDuring peace time, we have our respective roles: The public sector works to provide affordable, accessible healthcare, while the private sector looks after patients who prefer quicker response times, more privacy and have the means to pay a premium,\u201d he explains. \u201cBut when you\u2019ve got a pandemic? It\u2019s all hands on deck.\u201d<\/p>\n IHH is a global player, with a presence in multiple countries both in Asia and beyond. That\u2019s been a hedge against volatility in any one particular market.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBeing diversified has helped us a lot\u2026 there were times when Turkey faced macroeconomic issues like inflation, but Malaysia, Singapore and our other markets buoyed our economic performance,\u201d Prem says.\u00a0<\/p>\n Apart from deepening its presence in existing markets, IHH is also considering expanding into adjacent countries, though Prem admits that no concrete plans have yet been made.<\/p>\n \u201cAll of the countries we\u2019re in will at some point become saturated; competition is a given, so we have to look at new markets,\u201d Prem concludes. \u201cOther players like Thompson and Raffles Medical have gone into Vietnam, and we\u2019re also looking at Indonesia, which has changed its regulations to allow foreign doctors to practice and private hospitals to be fully owned by internationals.\u201d<\/p>\n Now four decades into his career in healthcare, Prem thinks the mix of specialties in Asia\u2019s healthcare institutions is changing. Just ten years ago, cardiology was the biggest speciality in most hospitals. But rates of cardiac disease have fallen in recent years, as the medical community pivots to managing cholesterol levels, hypertension and diabetes\u2014all risk factors for heart disease. (A recent study found that from 1990 to 2021, the age-standardized mortality rate of cardiovascular disease in Asia fell by 26%.)<\/p>\n \u201cCancer is now becoming the biggest subspecialty in all our hospitals,\u201d Prem says. \u201cWe\u2019re investing a lot in cancer testing, genomic medicine and precision medicine.\u201d<\/p>\n In 2019, IHH led a $20 million Series A funding round for Singapore-based genomic medicine firm Lucence, which makes ultra-sensitive blood tests called liquid biopsies that can detect over ten types of cancer at an early stage. IHH also invests in proton therapy machines, which provide a more precise form of radiation treatment using accelerated proton particles rather than traditional X-rays, and is often used to treat complex cancers like those in the head, neck, brain and liver.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re a strategic investor, not a financial investor,\u201d Prem explains. \u201cSo whatever we invest in, we actually use and validate.\u201d<\/p>\n In February, IHH launched a program called IHH Catalyst, which brings together healthcare entrepreneurs, clinicians and operational leaders to identify and nurture promising health start-ups. The inaugural edition took place in India, and selected a crop of businesses focusing on India\u2019s priority health domains like oncology, chronic disease management and preventive care. IHH will soon bring the initiative to North Asia, led by Gleneagles Hong Kong and Parkway Shanghai.<\/p>\n IHH is also bullish about AI. A few years ago, IHH converted its data and digital department into an AI transformation team, focused solely on identifying AI-enabled healthcare solutions.\u00a0<\/p>\n Its most tangible success so far, NurseShift.ai, automates hospital rostering\u2014a task that once consumed roughly 51% of nursing supervisors\u2019 time, according to Prem\u2014and has won a health innovation award from Singapore\u2019s Ministry of Health. It is being rolled out beyond Singapore to Malaysia and Hong Kong.<\/p>\n IHH is also working on a new project to build AI-enabled clinical pathways, where models analyze the symptoms and risk factors of each patient, then suggest a treatment plan which doctors can consider, edit and approve.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the key reasons behind resource wastage is variation in healthcare,\u201d Prem explains. \u201cDifferent specialists are trained differently, so they all do things differently. Some specialists may keep you in the hospital for two days, while others could opt for a week, but AI can help in standardizing this by giving clinicians a framework to build upon.\u201d<\/p>\n Still, Prem thinks there\u2019s still room for human medical judgment in the hospital. The medical staff are ultimately the ones performing the procedure, so there must be consensus,\u201d Prem says. \u201cWe must also allow for exceptions, since the profiles of patients can be quite different.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHealthcare and medicine can be complex in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n In Fortune\u2019s \u201cAsia Agenda\u201d column, released at least twice a month, we speak with Asia\u2019s top business leaders about how they are building for the future and the lessons they\u2019ve drawn from leading companies in one of the world\u2019s fastest growing and most dynamic regions. Explore all of\u00a0our profiles here.<\/em><\/p>\n #IHH #Healthcare #CEO #Prem #Kumar #Nair #planning #longerlived #Asia<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So says Prem Kumar Nair, CEO o… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3136,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[382,2123,283,886,1053,5775,5777,5779,5778,922,5776,3017,4287],"class_list":["post-3135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-finance-news","tag-asia","tag-asia-agenda","tag-ceo","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-ihh","tag-kumar","tag-longerlived","tag-nair","tag-planning","tag-prem","tag-singapore","tag-southeast-asia-500"],"yoast_head":"\nDual-listed in Singapore and Malaysia<\/strong><\/h2>\n
COVID: \u2018All hands on deck\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n
Future of healthcare<\/strong><\/h2>\n
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