The deal is pending approval from the Competition Council.
The Neolife Oncology Center Romania has been operating for seven years on the Romanian market. It operates four medical centers and is a member of the Bozlu Group, Turkey, which owns 21 companies. It has been operating in the field of healthcare and technological services for 32 years. The Neolife brand’s experience in nuclear medicine dates back to 1989 when the first private company providing such services in a hospital was opened in Turkey. Just one year later, in 1990, the first stand-alone private center was opened. Since then, its development has been very fast, and now cancer diagnosis and treatment services are provided in more than 60 public and private hospitals in Turkey.
“Neolife is an innovator in medicine, they introduced revolutionary diagnostic and treatment techniques and equipment in Romania, and the expertise they have in the most advanced European protocols for the treatment of diseases places the company in the top of the field. MedLife always brings together leaders, businesses and people who do their jobs extraordinarily well, and by this partnership with Neolife, we are once again reinforcing our long-term commitment to expanding our offer of excellent medical services benefiting patients all over the country. Furthermore, given the expertise and excellence in Radiotherapy and Nuclear Medicine developed by Neolife in neighbouring countries such as Bulgaria and Moldova in the future we aim to develop partnerships beyond Romania. Moreover, we have found an excellent management team there and we want them to stay with us to strengthen the Oncological Diagnosis and Treatment Services at group level,” said Mihai Marcu.
Neolife brand (managed by MNT Healthcare Europe entered the Romanian market in 2014 when it successfully launched the first oncology center in Bucharest providing diagnostic and treatment services. Neolife Medical Center Bucharest (Baneasa) is mainly equipped with two highly competitive Varian linear accelerators for Radiotherapy and Radiosurgery, a Brachytherapy system, a strong Nuclear Medicine department (PET-CT and Scintigraphy) and a high-performance Chemotherapy section.
In 2016, the second Neolife Oncology Center was opened in Iasi, offering the same range of diagnosis and treatment services. Three years later the third center, Neolife Medical Center Brasov, the first nuclear medicine center (PET-CT) in Brasov, was opened. Neolife opened its fourth Oncology Diagnostic and Treatment Center in Summer 2021, also located in Bucharest (Enayati Medical City). In this center, patients have access to PET-CT diagnosis and oncological radiotherapy treatment with Varian’s innovative new and powerful platform, Halcyon 3.0.
Neolife Medical Center Romania, with 250 employees and collaborators, ended 2020 with turnover worth RON92 million, up over 30% year-on-year, and net profit of RON2.1 million.
“MedLife is working on 2 or 3 other important M&A transactions, in the Oncology area to strengthen its network at the national level. It is important for us to let the people know that in the coming years we will continue to partner with other companies, at a high level, and that we have an increased appetite to cross borders. As a Romanian-owned healthcare operator that has dominated the private healthcare market for over ten years, it is now the time to show that we can become an operator with Balkan and regional ambitions. The fact that Romanians want to be treated by Romanian doctors and look for local products and services, including in healthcare, is an important message for the local market as a whole, and of course for the only company with Romanian capital in the top three local healthcare services companies. This consumer trend is not a protectionist one but, on the contrary, a natural balance that can be noticed all over Europe. It is healthy for a working economy to have a balanced combination of domestic capital and foreign investment. We are investing massively to expand our network in Romania, a network already much larger than any other private network, with a far superior coverage at county level and in Bucharest. We want our subscribers, whether individuals or employees of our partner companies, to know that there is now a network, and the only one that they can reach by car in up to one hour, no matter where they are, at home, on holiday or on business”, said Mihai Marcu.
(English version by Catalina Apostoiu)