The Schroders marked the trend in 1996 by investing PE in Indraprastha Apollo Hospital. Since then the investment in heath care has been robust. For the 12-month period ending December 2006, the Indian healthcare sector attracted $379 million - 6.3 per cent of the total PE investment of $5.93 billion, according to a report from management consulting firm Technopak. The growing interest of PE investors in healthcare was affirmed by acquisition of HCA, USA's largest hospital chain for $33 billion— making it the largest PE deal in 2006. In the UK, General Healthcare Group (GHG) was sold by BC Partners to a consortium headed by Apax Partners, and the South African hospital Group Netcare for GBP 2.2 billion— the largest ever European healthcare deal.

Indian big players are already on the path to raise multiple rounds of funding from multiple investors. For instance, Apax Partners, One Equity Partners and IFC, while Fortis raised PE investment from Trinity Capital, George Soros and Blue Ridge Capital, and Health Care Global from IDFC, Evolvence and PremjiInvest. In the last year, some of the PE firms which have evinced interest in healthcare include ICICI Venture, Global Healthcare Investments and Solutions, Bluewater International Investment, Lightspeed Advisory, Reliance Life Sciences, Fidelity International, Blackstone, IDFC, HSBC, JP Morgan Private Equity Fund, American International Group Inc (AIG), George Soros's fund Quantum and Blue Ridge. The Indian healthcare market is expected to balloon to $79 billion by 2012. Experts predict that access to PE would help the $34 billion domestic healthcare sector grow at 15 per cent year-on-year.