Unihealth Hospitals Limited, the Mumbai headquartered healthcare services provider with presence in Africa and India, was founded in 2010 and listed on NSE Emerge in 2023. It operates hospitals and medical centres, provides healthcare consultancy services, exports and distributes medical consumables and pharmaceuticals and facilitates medical value travel under the UniHealth and UMC Hospitals brand.

Co-Founded by Dr. Anurag Shah and Dr. Akshay Parmar, the Group has, since its inception in 2010, expanded across geographies and business verticals with an unified vision of ensuring access to healthcare by all.

While Dr. Akshay Parmar has been instrumental in expanding the Group’s consultancy services and distribution verticals, Dr. Anurag Shah has led the expansion of the Group’s medical centres and hospitals across Africa.

Dr. Akshay Parmar, equipped with an M.B.B.S. degree from KJ Somaiya Medical College and Certificate Programs in ‘Value Creating Financial Strategies’ and ‘Venture Capital & Private Equity’ from ISB, Hyderabad, is a vital figure in the Group’s financial and tech initiatives. Post the listing of Unihealth Hospitals Limited in 2023, he is spearheading the expansion of UMC Hospitals across India.


Q1: UniHealth started as a medical value travel company. How has it evolved into a diversified healthcare platform?

Our journey began in 2010 with Medical Value Travel, helping patients access quality care across borders through trusted hospital collaborations and airline partnerships. Along the way, we realized that true impact lay not just in facilitation, but in creating healthcare infrastructure where it was needed the most. We adopted the “Where Care Comes First” motto and the “Healthcare for All” vision, leading us to build medical centres and multi-specialty hospitals across Africa., providing accessible and reliable healthcare to local communities. As our experience grew, we further diversified into healthcare consultancy, took on large-scale projects, and strengthened our ecosystem through pharmaceutical and medical consumables distribution. Today, we stand as a diversified healthcare platform with four integrated verticals—hospitals, medical centres, consultancy, and pharma distribution—each complementing the other to build a stronger, more sustainable, and impactful healthcare ecosystem.

Q2: What are UniHealth’s key expansion plans in India?

In the coming 2-3 years, UniHealth aims to have a commissioned bed strength exceeding 1,000 beds across its facilities in India & Africa. With respect to India, at present, we’re focusing on Maharashtra’s “Golden Triangle” – Mumbai, Pune, and Nashik. By October 2025, we’ll commission our 50-bed multi-specialty tertiary care hospital in Navi Mumbai. Before the end of this Financial Year, we intend to commission a 200 bed facility in Nashik. Pune is the next destination that we are actively exploring. Between Pune City and Pune Metropolitan Region (PMRDA), in the coming 2-3 years, we plan to have 2 hospitals of 100–125 beds each. Our medium-term goal is to reach 500–600 beds in India, but we’re doing it thoughtfully, one project at a time.

Q3: How is UniHealth strengthening its presence in Africa?

We’re already running UMC Victoria Hospital in Kampala and Unihealth Medical Centre in Mwanza. And we’re not stopping there – a new 20-bed secondary care facility in Mwanza is underway, and we’re in discussions to operationally acquire a 100-bed hospital in Dar-es-Salaam. Our focus is on sustainable growth, so each expansion is carefully planned to meet real healthcare needs. In the coming 2-3 years, UniHealth aims to consolidate its position in East Africa to emerge as the largest private sector healthcare services provider in the region.

Q4: What sets UniHealth’s business model apart from traditional hospital chains?

Our business model is unique. It is different in a way, it is asset-light and at the same time scalable. We don’t need to own every facility outright. By combining hospitals, consultancy, distribution, and medical value travel, we’ve built a self-sustaining inter-linked ecosystem. It reduces capital pressure, improves margins, and allows us to expand faster without compromising quality.

Q5: How is UniHealth funding its growth strategy while maintaining financial discipline?

The ongoing expansions have been funded mainly through internal accruals and IPO proceeds. We aim to become debt-free in our mature units in the near term, strengthening our balance sheet and allowing us to explore debt-funding for our new ventures, ensuring fiscal discipline as we enter into an exciting phase of growth. Between FY20 and FY25, our revenues more than doubled, and EBITDA margins improved from 13% to over 36%. For us, it has always been about growing responsibly while keeping the business healthy and profitable.

Q6: What role does healthcare consultancy play in UniHealth’s growth?

Consultancy is actually one of our biggest strategic levers. It allows us to partner on projects globally, especially in Africa and India. Through planning, design, and management support, we establish trust in new markets, build long-term partnerships, and open doors for future hospital operations. It’s like planting seeds for our next chapter. From a financial perspective, I have always considered this vertical to be the cream and cherry on the cake. Despite lower contribution to the consolidated revenue, this vertical operates at high EBIDTA margins and ensures continued learning for the Team, in-turn improving the patient care systems in place at our hospitals.

Q7: How is UniHealth addressing the healthcare gap in underserved geographies?

We deliberately focus on places that need quality care the most – underserved regions in Africa and Tier-2 cities in India. These are areas with fewer tertiary care options and a growing need for quality patient-centric services. By going there, we meet real healthcare demand while positioning ourselves as a trusted first mover. Implementing technology across multiple segments of care delivery has also allowed us to connect these regions with partner specialists in Tier-1 cities, ensuring comprehensive care delivery.

Q8: What are UniHealth’s medium-term capacity targets?

Our medium-term target is 1,000 commissioned beds – about 500–600 in India and 400–500 in Africa. We follow a cluster-based approach, which helps us scale efficiently and maintain high-quality standards across locations.

Q9: Looking ahead, what is UniHealth’s long-term vision?

Our vision is simple but ambitious – to transform healthcare across India and Africa. We want to make quality care accessible, using our asset-light, scalable model. By leveraging synergies across our verticals, expanding medical value travel, and maintaining financial discipline, we aim to create sustainable impact for patients, communities, and stakeholders alike.