Dr. Prathap Chandra Reddy

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise

Architect of modern Indian healthcare

A Padma Vibhushan awardee, Dr. Prathap Chandra Reddy is the Founder and Chairman of Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd. – India’s largest hospital group with a market capitalisation of over INR 41,000 crores. He is considered the architect of modern Indian healthcare. Starting his career in the US, he came to India in 1970 and launched the first Apollo Hospital in Chennai in 1983.

Dr. Reddy persevered tirelessly for many months, while setting up his first 150-bed hospital. He used to travel to New Delhi every week from Chennai, meeting bureaucrats and top ministers and convincing them about the country’s growing need for high quality advanced healthcare. Today, the Apollo Hospitals group has a capacity of over 10,000 beds across 71 hospitals.

Dr. Reddy led Apollo to becoming a pioneer in technology adoption – from bringing the first CT scan, PET scan and MRI machines to India – to introducing Cyberknife (advanced robotic tumour treatment) and even South East Asia & Middle East’s first Proton Therapy (world’s most advanced radiation therapy for cancer care). He introduced innovative delivery models such as, Apollo Aragonda (India’s first telemedicine) and Apollo Health City (Asia’s first healthcare city). During the COVID-19 pandemic, Apollo designated 2,000+ beds across the country for patients. It also launched its digital healthcare app Apollo 24/7, which helped connect 3.7 million users to 32,000 listed doctors remotely.

A humanitarian at heart, Dr. Reddy has played a significant role in improving private healthcare infrastructure in the country. As Chairman of CII National Healthcare Committee, he was instrumental in reforms for improving accreditation norms of Indian hospitals.