“India is a key geography of focus for Mubadala, and we are looking to meaningfully deploy capital across various sectors, including healthcare,” Mina Hamoodi, director of life sciences at Mubadala, told ET. “Our investment tickets are in the range of $200-500 million, given the appropriate combination of scale and ability to drive value and further growth. However, we always have flexibility to scale up beyond $500 million for investments in which we have strong conviction,” she said.
According to Hamoodi, the main focus areas in India are pharmaceuticals, outsourced pharma services and medtech.
Mubadala Investment Company, which aims at generating sustainable financial returns for the Government of Abu Dhabi, has a $276 billion portfolio spanning six continents with interests in multiple sectors and asset classes.
Mubadala was in the news two months ago after making its first direct private equity investment in India. It had acquired about 3.75% stake in India’s second largest hospital chain Manipal at a valuation of ₹40,000 crore.
Mubadala, which has been investing in India as a limited partner (LP or investor in a PE fund), has started its direct investments for the last couple of years. Last month, along with Avendus, Mubadala invested about ₹1,000 crore in Avanse Financial Services, its debut deal in the Indian financial services space. Mubadala invested ₹9,000 crore in Jio Platforms; ₹4,000 crore in Tata Power Renewables in partnership with BlackRock Real Assets. “There are also changing demographics, most notably a growing affluent population driving demand for quality treatment and increased spending on discretionary health services and wellness, including elective surgeries and supplements. Additionally, there is increasing penetration across income segments driven by provider footprint expansion beyond metro/tier I cities, she said.
Mubadala is active in the UAE healthcare landscape in partnership with medical institutions including Cleveland Clinic, LabCorp and the Imperial College of London.
Mubadala had done a few large buyouts in the healthcare space globally. In 2022, the sovereign fund, along with PE fund EQT, acquired Envirotainer, the Swedish provider of cold chain transport for the biopharmaceuticals companies, for $3 billion.
In the same year, it did a $2.6 billion buyout of Informa Pharma Intelligence, a data and software company for clinical trials and drug development, along with Warburg Pincus.
“As a responsible investor, and a steward of capital, our overarching mission is to enable greater access to care, and to reduce the cost of care to the system,” Hamoodi said.
Mubadala’s major healthcare / life sciences investments include China-based contract research organization Novotech, biotech player Giant Biogene; European diagnostics company Inovie; US-based companies PCI Pharma Services, Recursion Pharma, Resilience; and Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi.
